Note: The information on this page was taken whole cloth from The Grand History of Eberron (found in the Useful Links page, and edited for clarity). Use of this material does not construe a challenge to either Keith Baker, Wizards of the Coast, or Christopher J. Monte who compiled and edited all of the information together from a dozen sources. The information is placed here for ease of access to my players. -B
This timeline uses the common calendar of Khorvaire called the Galifar Calendar, which was developed during the reign of King Galifar II. It's year 1 is the founding of the Kingdom of Galifar (Year of the Kingdom or YK). All dates prior to that year are negative numbers and all dates after are positive.
Date: Unknown
In the mythic past, the cosmos was an undifferentiated realm of matter and energy similar in some ways to the present day Elemental Chaos. The Progenitor wyrms, the first and greatest of dragonkind and the most powerful divine beings of the multiverse, ruled over all of this unformed creation. The three most powerful Progenitors—Siberys, Eberron and Khyber—discovered (or created) the Draconic Prophecy that shapes the destiny of all Creation. A world-shattering struggle followed between the three Progenitors, splitting the newborn world into three parts and scattering the Prophecy across the width and breadth of existence. In the end, Siberys became the glowing, yellow ring of solidified arcane energy that surrounds the world, Khyber was bound in its darkest depths, and Eberron healed the surface world between by becoming one with it. Siberys called forth from his own divine essence the first generation of true dragons, the angels and the couatls, Eberron birthed all of the other known living things, and Khyber spat out the demons and the daelkyr. The race of devils was born during the great conflict between the Progenitors when some of the angels of Siberys betrayed their father and swore their allegiance to dark Khyber instead.
The wisest dragons of the present age contend that the world of Eberron was born in battle. According to myth, the unformed emptiness before Creation was the domain of three mighty divine spirits who took the shape of great dragon siblings. Golden Siberys was the source of all arcane and divine magic. Gentle Eberron was the primal fountain of the natural energies of life itself. Cruel Khyber was the master of secret knowledge and of the foul, destructive powers that always lurk in the darkness. Together, the Progenitors held dominion over the fate of all, and they pondered the proper shape of the cosmos.
In the beginning, the Progenitors worked together harmoniously. They began their great work by first separating the fundamental planes of the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos from each other and then by crafting the thirteen astral dominions and elemental realms within each of these planes that made up the larger multiverse. But as the Progenitors molded reality, ethical rifts began to form between them. Dark Khyber grew greedy and selfish, and noble Siberys responded by becoming more forceful; each sought greater influence in the work of Creation. The planes of Daanvi, Fernia, and Irian today bear the prevailing mark of Siberys. Kythri, Mabar, and Xoriat show the dominant touch of Khyber. Eberron sought to mediate between her siblings, which left a more balanced stamp on the remaining planes of existence, but she could not bridge the basic philosophical and moral divide between her counterparts. The result of Eberron’s mediation was the birth of the mirror worlds of Thelanis, the Feywild, and Dolurhh, the Shadowfell. Eberron joined with Siberys to craft Thelanis, a world where Siberys’ arcane energies could flow through every rock and forested glade. Khyber’s malignant power corrupted her joint creation with Eberron of Dolurrh, a gloomy world where the necromantic energies of shadow ran riot, later calling out with a siren call to the spirits of the dead.
When it came time to create the final, central, world around which all the others would circle in the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos, the ideological tensions between bright Siberys and foul Khyber could not be contained. The three Progenitors had fashioned a round sphere of rock from the chaotic matter of the Elemental Chaos that they sat spinning in the void, circling a sun created by forging a link with the fiery Plane of Fernia. In turn, this world was orbited by thirteen moons, one each to serve as a physical gateway between the planet and the other thirteen planes of the cosmos. But no life stirred on the barren sphere and Siberys and Khyber began to argue furiously once moreover the destiny of their final creation.
At last, the brewing storm between the two Progenitors could not be contained and the dark one unexpectedly tore into her brilliant sibling, mortally wounding the golden dragon and scattering his scales across the new world’s sky. Although not powerful enough to defeat her foul sister, Eberron knew that Khyber could not be allowed to benefit from her nefarious deeds. The gentle Progenitor refused to fight Khyber with claw and tooth as her brother had done. Instead, Eberron embraced her, trapping Khyber within her smothering coils as she merged their dual essence with the spinning sphere the Progenitors had created at the heart of the cosmos. Eberron called on her innate connection to the primal power of all life and creation, giving birth to the new world’s fertile soil, trees, animals and oceans. In this way, Eberron transformed herself into a living prison that Khyber could never escape.
Thus Eberron became the world on which all life grew and changed. To this day, she nurtures and sustains all living things. Siberys’ divine remains became the pale yellow ring of golden dragonshards that circles the world at the equator; his scattered scales became the stars. Khyber remains trapped within the heart of the planet—the Dragon Below, the Mother of Monsters, the source of all darkness, fear, and pain—forever struggling to once more break free and bring an end to all Creation so that she may begin the process anew—and alone.
Soon after she merged with the world, Eberron also began to manifest marks of the Draconic Prophecy on her body, which meant the appearance of dragon-shaped runic marks on the bedrock of the planet itself. Each mark provided a clue to the interpretation of the broader Prophecy and the destiny of the world and its inhabitants—for those who knew how to interpret them.
In the wake of the battle of the Progenitors, life slowly emerged in the new world over many millions of years. Siberys had fallen in battle to his dark-hearted sibling, but power remained within his spattered divine blood. Filled with the purest essence of arcane magic, that blood fell on Eberron, merging the primal forces of life and arcane magic to eventually produce new creatures with the strength of both Progenitors: dragons. According to draconic myths, where the blood of Siberys struck the clouds, silver dragons were born. It fell on the cold peaks and white dragons rose from the ice. It struck the swamps, and black dragons emerged from the dark depths. In a similar way, according to this myth, were all the families and subraces of the dragons first born on the continent of Argonessen. The dragons were mighty, numerous and proud, possessing the innate arcane power of Siberys and the vibrant, primal force of Eberron. The dragons venerated the Progenitor wyrms as the architects of Creation, but they also took up the religious faith known in Draconic as Thir, which in addition to the Progenitors, worshiped a pantheon of eleven draconic deities who were held to be lesser divine spirits who had aided the three Progenitor wyrms in their shaping of the cosmos. It was after these deities that the first dragons named the constellations that circled the world.
Thus Eberron, figuratively and literally, is a world divided into three parts. Mythology suggests that the three parts correspond to the three great Progenitor wyrms of legendary times— Siberys, the Dragon Above; Khyber, the Dragon Below; and Eberron, the Dragon Between. This figurative interpretation makes its way into the religion, philosophy, and folklore of every intelligent race of the world. Every culture of Eberron has a version of the legend of the Progenitor dragon explained above. Whether this mythology is literally true or is a symbolic explanation for physical and magical processes that took place over vast stretches of time is for the scholars to debate.
In literal terms, the Dragon Above corresponds to the ring of golden dragonshards that encircles the world of Eberron high above its equator. The Ring of Siberys can be seen in the southern sky, appearing as a luminescent band of golden specks that begins at the time of the winter equinox as a narrow and intense band and becomes wider and more diffuse as the year progresses. It can be seen best at night but is visible during the day as well.
Khyber, the Dragon Below, comprises the Underdark of the world, the labyrinthine caverns that snake beneath the world’s crust and fill the depths of the planet. Khyber consists of twisting tunnels that open on cavernous vaults of varying shapes and sizes. This subterranean expanse mirrors the world above, a dark reflection of underground rivers, still lakes, and fiery streams of molten lava.
Between the Dragon Above and the Dragon Below, the surface of Eberron stretches from horizon to horizon, a patchwork of fields and forests, oceans and mountains, deserts, swamps, jungles, tundra, and more. Beneath a yellow sun, Eberron’s varied environments give way one to another across each continent. Mountains rise, valleys fall, and water surrounds the land.
Few of the intelligent beings of the current age existed at the dawn of time. The titans of Xen’drik were in their infancy, possessed of great potential power but lacking the knowledge required to use it. The lesser races of humanoids had not yet been born; the dark creatures like the fiends native to Eberron had not yet been vomited forth from Khyber’s depths. So it was that wild flights of dragons soared above the world, reveling in their might.
The dragons’ only true match at the dawn of Creation among the other races were the couatls, the feathered serpents who first emerged on the continent of Sarlona. For all their power, dragons are still mortal creatures. They reproduce, they grow old, and in time they die. The couatls stood outside the cycle of life; legends say that the couatls were formed from the pure blood of Siberys before it struck Eberron, and that, as a result, they were truly immortal, celestial beings, the counterparts of Khyber’s fiends and equal to the angels. They were reborn only after death so that their numbers always remained constant. Though powerful, the couatls kept to their home in Sarlona, leaving the dragons to explore the world.
Date: -10,000,000 YK
Ten million years ago, Khyber’s fiendish offspring—the rakshasas, night hags, demons, devils and their Na-Vakhti or “Overlords”—the rajahs of the rakshasas—burst forth from the deep darkness of the Dragon Below and overran the surface world, creating a hellish environment where rakshasas and night hags ruled supreme. The seas of Eberron were little better, having become the domain of the alien aboleths. The aboleths were also children of Khyber, having arrived on Eberron from Xoriat, the Far Realm. Just as the fiends built hellish kingdoms of nightmare over most of Eberron’s surface, the aboleths established their own bizarre and incomprehensible dwellings in every major ocean and sea of the young world.
Date: -1,500,000 YK
After millions of years of oppression at the hands of the fiends, the dragons of Argonessen, through the combined efforts of the blue dragon Ourelonastrix and the couatl Hezcalipa, rediscovered the Draconic Prophecy and rose from their primitive state to oppose the fiendish Overlords, allying with the other draconic species descended from Siberys,including the couatls. The common humanoid races of titans, humans, dwarves, halflings, orcs, and goblins, all still in primitive states on their respective home continents, hid from the god-like combatants and found a way to survive the great conflict.
Date: -100,000 YK
After over a million years of war between dragonkind and the fiends, the couatls sacrificed most of their race’s number in an unimaginably powerful ritual that banished the mightiest of the demon Overlords and the majority of the fiends back to Khyber, where they were trapped for eternity by the combined divine force of the couatl race, which became known much later to the people of Khorvaire as the Silver Flame. Many night hags, foreseeing the coming doom of the fiendish races, fled instead to Thelanis where they soon became a major scourge of the fey peoples. Those aboleths who could not escape back to Xoriat fled into the deepest depths of the underground seas of Khyber, there to await the day the Silver Flame guttered out and they could seek their own revenge with the fiends against the great wyrms. The dragons retreated to Argonnessen to further contemplate the Prophecy, ignoring the “lesser races.”
For untold millennia, the dragons were the sole lords of Eberron during the Age of Dragons. Then a new threat emerged some ten million years before the founding of the Kingdom of Galifar. Khyber was bound in the depths of Eberron, but this did not eliminate the dark Progenitor’s power. In time, a host of horrors spawned in the depths. Rakshasas, night hags, and other demonic terror emerged to lay claim to the world above. The greatest was the Na-Vakhti, the Overlords of Khyber, who were fiends of such power that they possessed strength easily equivalent to that of minor gods. At this time, the dragons of Argonessen were organized into simple clans called flights, which fought with one another as often as not. Scattered and wild, they were no match for the sudden onslaught of the Overlords of Khyber and their legions of flying, crawling and shrieking fiends.
After the mighty fiends consolidated their hold on the surface world, they ruled over a nightmare kingdom for millions of years. The once-proud dragons were forced into slavery and servitude. The fiendish dominion might have continued until the end of time, if not for the couatl Hezcalipa and a blue dragon named Ourelonastrix.
Working together over the course of centuries, these two visionaries studied the sky and stars and compared their findings with mysterious patterns that appeared on the surface of the world. They became convinced that such study could reveal a map of the future, an outline of the myriad paths history might follow. Ourelonastrix believed it to be the wisdom of the Progenitors, a blueprint for the shape of reality. He called it the Draconic Prophecy, authored by Eberron and Siberys themselves in the form of the raw Prophecy marks that appeared in the bedrock of the world.
The draconic Prophecy gave Ourelonastrix insights into the weaknesses of the fiendish Overlords. Even more, it gave the dragon and his kin a sense of hope, the belief that dragons were part of something greater and grander than their own petty interests and problems. Following the path of the Prophecy, Ourelonastrix and Hezcalipa rallied their peoples against the children of Khyber, setting in motion a war that would continue for thousands of years. Despite their raw power— or perhaps, because of it—the Overlords and their followers were scattered and overconfident. This allowed the combined might of the dragon–couatl alliance to defeat them one by one.
Despite this advantage, the war against the fiends seemed hopeless. The Overlords were truly immortal. The defeat of an Overlord was only temporary at best since their forms were reborn in less than a day after their destruction in the depths of Khyber and no simple spell could bind them. The fiends also had access to powerful weapons that could be used to devastating effect against the dragons. The most powerful of the Overlords, Tiamat, the Daughter of Khyber, created the Orbs of Dragonkind, artifacts that allowed the user to channel Tiamat’s infernal power to bind dragons to his will. Whatever the truth of this legend, these artifacts are both despised and desperately prized by the dragons of Argonnessen, who are determined to keep them out of the hands of mortal and fiend alike. It is believed that seven of the Orbs are currently held in the hoards of the mightiest elder wyrms of Argonnessen; the remaining are currently unaccounted for. Several other Orbs are known to have been created by other races, perhaps with fiendish aid. The giants of Xen’drik, for example, are known to have fashioned two Orbs of Dragonkind before their own conflict with the dragons.
Then the couatl Hezcalipa’s studies uncovered a path to victory. Indeed, the outcome appeared foreordained in the Prophecy. Still, the cost was terrible. Led by Hezcalipa, the couatls sacrificed almost their entire race, using a powerful magical ritual to forge their immortal essence into a pure divine force for righteous good later called the Silver Flame. Once unleashed, this divine force could hold the Overlords and their dire followers within arcane prisons in the depths of the Dragon Below. Some fiends escaped this imprisonment and fled to the Demon Wastes on the northwestern corner of the continent of Khorvaire. There they formed an organization known as theLords of Dust dedicated to restoring the rule of the fiends over the world, but the war was won.
Although the dragons fought fiercely, some scholars believe that they abandoned the couatls at the end, refusing to share the cost of the final sacrifice of binding the fiends in the darkness of Khyber. It is possible that this abandonment was a matter of fear, although that seems unlikely in a race as powerful as that of the dragons. It might be that being mortal, the dragons simply did not have the same spiritual energy required to bind the fiends as did the couatls. The feathered serpents had been born from the more pure essence of Siberys and thus were immortal celestial creatures just as the children of Khyber were fiends born from the dark essence of the Dragon Below. Perhaps the dragons’ survival was a calculated decision. Whatever the truth, the self-sacrifice of the couatls removed both celestials and fiends from the day-to-day life of Eberron, leaving the dragons as masters of the Prophecy and the most powerful beings in the world.
The Great War against the fiends united the dragons as never before. It forced them to set aside their petty rivalries and to master the arcane powers that had long lain dormant within them. The surviving dragons were more powerful than ever before, but their population had been devastated by the long battle. Following the defeat of the Overlords, most of the surviving dragons retreated to the sanctuary of Argonnessen. The elder wyrms gathered in the first great Draconic Conclave of Argonessen and laid the foundation of draconic culture that remains in place to this day. The survivors spent tens of thousands of years nursing their wounds, rebuilding their flights, identifying and studying the signs of the Prophecy and honing the magical gifts they had developed during the war. In time, some began to look beyond Argonnessen and to explore the lands they rediscovered.
Sixty thousand years ago, the dragons began spreading across Eberron again. They found dozens of growing humanoid civilizations—kingdoms of giants and their titan forebears in Xen’drik, primitive clans of dwarves on the arctic continent of the Frostfell north of Khorvaire, nomadic groups of shifters and humans in Sarlona, and the nascent goblin and orc races in Khorvaire. Some merely wished to study the lesser creatures. A few came as mentors, foremost among them the descendants of Ourelonastrix. These dragons shared the secrets of arcane magic with the giants, curious to see what innovations these promising creatures might develop. But the bulk of the dragons chose the path of conquest. Flights of dragons carved out new dominions across the world.
For most of the dragons, it began as a game—one with a high cost in life among non-dragons.In time, however, the struggle turned dragon against dragon. Friendly rivalries became bitter. The blood of dragons flowed. And as the troubles spread, the Daughter of Khyber stirred in the Pit of Five Sorrows. Hundreds of dragons fell under her sway, and the spawn of Tiamat rose from tainted broods. Given time to spread, this infernal corruption could have destroyed Argonnessen.
Fortunately for the dragons, the Watchful Eyes of Chronepsis, the draconic guardians of the law, were able to identify the tainted dragons, and the militant Light of Siberys, the dragons’ military force, brought an end to the corruption. The Conclave gathered at a massive natural aerie in the heart of Argonnessen. There the students of the Draconic Prophecy presented their findings. To this day, the records of this gathering remain privileged information even within Argonnessen, shared only with the most respected and powerful elder wyrms. Most dragons believe that the seers linked Tiamat’s rising power to the spread of draconic activity across the globe—opining that the influence of the dragon lords, in turn, empowered the Daughter of Khyber and weakened her prison. One fact is known: Following the council, the Conclave called on the scattered dragons to return to Argonnessen. The age of draconic expansion across Eberron was at an end. Outside of Argonessen, the world would now be inherited by the “lesser races.”
Date: -80,000 YK
The massive elemental humanoids known as the giants rose from the ruins of the Dragon-Fiend Wars to establish a vast and powerful civilization on their home continent of Xen’drik. The giants were towering humanoids who were strongly tied to the elemental nature of Eberron, a world forged in part by the Progenitor wyrms from the raw material of the Elemental Chaos. The giants were in some ways the sentient expressions of this part of the world’s nature. At least three major giant civilizations are known to have come into being during this time through the efforts of the greatest of giantkind who were called the Titans: the peaceful, intellectually-inclined Empire of Cul’sir, the Group of Eleven and the militaristic, flame-worshiping Sul’at League. The giants of these civilizations enslaved the elves, recently arrived immigrants to Eberron from the mirror world of Thelanis, also known as the Feywild. The elves were a relatively peaceful, nomadic folk who enjoyed living in the woodlands and jungles of Xen’drik before the first of their tribes began to be enslaved by the giants. This enslavement had the inadvertent effect of pulling the first of the common humanoid races out of their primitive state.
Date: -60,000 YK
The dragons of Argonessen’s stormy romance with the continent of Xen’drik began tens of thousands of years ago and, as tumultuous affairs often do, it ended in tragedy. Sixty millennia ago, the dragons gazed across the Thunder Sea at the glorious empires the giants had raised up on Xen’drik and decided to share the power and majesty of arcane magic with them. Upon the steps of a towering white ziggurat at an oasis deep in the Menechtarun Desert of western Xen’drik, the dragons, led by Ourelonastrix, made contact with the giant kingdoms and began to teach the titan overlords and their fellow giants how to use arcane magic. The giants started to worship Ourelonastrix as the god Ouralon, the lord of knowledge and law, a faith that replaced the giants’ devotion to earlier, more morally ambivalent gods such as Rom-Praxis. The oasis where the great blue dragon and the giants first collaborated was turned by the Titans into a magical paradise in honor of their draconic patrons. Living marble statues frolicked among pools of crystalline water whose inherent magic promised life everlasting and the cure to all afflictions of the mind, body, and soul. Vast orchards of date trees sprouted from the sand of the oasis, their fruit granting joyous visions of the future to all who partook of them.
A golden age unrivaled in any other era of Eberron’s history soon followed. Giant and dragon stood side by side, crafting newborn utopias among the giant nations where none suffered from hunger or crime. Together, the giants and dragons cheated death, touched the stars and kept the Lords of Dust securely imprisoned underground in Khyber. Under the dragons’ patronage, the giants crafted sky-scraping monuments and wonders of surpassing beauty that would eventually draw the notice of the inhabitants of Dal Quor, the Plane of Dreams. The dragons reveled in the giants’ successes and then returned to Argonessen, drunk with pride and secure in the belief that the decision to teach the giants the full mysteries of arcane magic was a correct one, for the giants were as trustworthy with the power as the elder great wyrms. Time would prove the dragons disastrously wrong.
The giants quickly mastered the arcane arts taught by the dragons and used this knowledge to create magical wonders and artifacts unequaled even in the present day. The giants used their new power to found multiple new giant settlements across the length and breadth of Xen’drik. Among the many accomplishments of the fire-worshiping Sul’at League giants, perhaps the most powerful practitioners of conjuration, transmutation and elemental binding magics ever known on Eberron,was the magical infusion of a portion of the essence of Khyber into a community of their elven slaves, creating the separate black-skinned race of elves known as the dark elves or the drow. The drow were set apart from their elven cousins from the beginning, for the giants often used the drow to hunt down escaped elven slaves or to combat the roaming tribes of freed elven slaves who often launched nuisance guerrilla attacks on isolated giants in the deep jungle when they got the chance. In return for this service, many drow received special privileges from their giant masters, although others came to hate their enslavement as much as any elf.
The giants of this period ranged far afield across the length and breadth of Eberron, even sending exploratory parties to Sarlona. In that distant land, the giants used their magical might to create a race of half-giants by fusing their own blood with that of the psionically-potent humans of that continent. The half-giants took the elves’ place as the giants’ slaves and servants at their Sarlonan outposts. Other legends of the half-giants say that these giant outposts in Sarlona were only established after the fall of the giants’ civilizations on Xen’drik when they tried to escape the devastation the dragons rained down on that continent and that they were the descendants of these giant explorers.
During the twenty millennia of the giants’ golden age, the elves watched and learned much of arcane magic from their place at the giants’ heels. One group of elves known as the Qabalrin broke away from their giant masters and founded their own civilization. The Qabalrin were a reclusive sect of elves whose arcane might even the giants feared, and these elves lived alongside their drow cousins, who they employed as servants and arcane assistants. Stories tell of how the titans first learned their magic from the dragon god Ouralon, bringer of light and law, even as the Qabalrin drew on the power of Ouralon’s terrible divine Shadow. Whatever the truth behind the legends, these elves were the mightiest conjurers and necromancers Eberron had ever seen, pioneering many of the necromantic techniques used in the present day—along with most of the fundamental principles of the necromantic religion that would one day become known as the Blood of Vol. According to legend, the Qabalrin created the first vampires, some of whom might still lie entombed in their ancient ruins.
The Qabalrin lived in a single massive city-state called Qalatesh, a fortress in the legendary mountainous region of Xen’drik known as the Ring of Storms. Left unchecked, the Qabalrin might have one day dominated the land, but fate—or divine providence— intervened. Over forty thousand years ago, a massive Siberys dragonshard called the Heart of Siberys plummeted from the sky, smashing into Qalatesh. The impact and the resulting devastation (both magical and natural) destroyed the necromantic elves’ civilization. Remarkably, though, the damage did not extend beyond the mountain ring. The giants called this outcome a miracle, citing the harsh justice of Ouralon and the event as a divine warning to those who would traffic with the Shadow.
Date: -40,000 YK
The utopia the giants had taken twenty thousand years to build came crashing down almost overnight when the quori, the alien inhabitants of the Plane of Dreams, invaded Xen’drik through a planar gate that connected Eberron to Dal Quor forty millennia ago. Dal Quor’s vile caress brought with it an unspeakable alien doom for the giant empires. Nightmares erupted from the earth and the sky as the giants faced the psionic power of the quori, a power that all their magical studies had not prepared them to combat. Since the quori found it difficult to operate in the physical world, which operated under such very different natural laws than the Plane of Dreams, the quori created arcane creation forges and actually funneled the primal life force of Eberron herself to craft the first warforged, living, sentient arcane constructs who swelled the quori’s foul legions. The warforged did not need to eat or sleep, and they proved to be powerful additions to the quori army, especially when paired with docents, spherical, sentient arcane repositories of quori knowledge and memory that could interface with individual warforged to enhance their capabilities. These docents were originally designed to serve as magical safe havens for quori spirits in the event that the Plane of Dreams underwent its cyclical transformation, destroying the entire current race of quori. However, the project met with only limited success and so the docents were later converted into warforged combat aids.
After centuries of battle against the quori and their living constructs alongside their rivals and sometime allies the Cul’sir, the Sul’at’s titan overlords were forced to resort to a desperate gambit to prevent all of Xen’drik from falling before the power of Dal Quor. The Sul’at corrupted the dragons’ gift of arcane magic with foul blood rites and brutal sacrifices of their elven slaves and other giants. They returned to the oasis in the Menechtarun Desert where Ouralon had first instructed the titans in the ways of arcane power and constructed a perverse sacrificial altar atop the white ziggurat where the dragons had first made themselves known to the giants of Xen’drik. This altar, the Altar of Blood, soon ran crimson with gallons of blood from the Sul’at’s sacrifices. The oasis paradise where the giants had celebrated their friendship with the dragons was transformed into the horrific Oasis of Blood as the Sul’at embraced the dark power granted by blood magic. The majestic marble statues now wept crimson tears and the once-clear pools of healing waters clouded with dark red blood. The white ziggurat still stood, a sand-scoured testament to the broken bond between giant and dragon, but the dark power of blood magic that tainted its altar drew undead denizens and evil spirits like moths to a flame. The giants had tapped these dread powers far beyond their ability to control to forge and empower an incredibly powerful eldritch machine called the Moon Breaker. The Moon Breaker’s baleful power did succeed at driving the quori off of Eberron but nearly took all of Xen’drik with them. The eldritch machine’s activation destroyed Crya, the thirteenth moon of Eberron, and in the process severed the planar gate between the world and Dal Quor just as the Sul’at Titans’ arcane loremasters had foreseen. As the moon disintegrated, the result was a planetary cataclysm that shook Xen’drik to its core and plunged large chunks of that continent beneath the sea. Mountains collapsed and gaping wounds the size of entire cities were rent open in the earth. The sun’s light was blotted out for a decade as portions of the shattered moon rained down from the sky for years, spreading the unspeakable devastation across the world. The physical connection between Eberron and Dal Quor was severed, perhaps forever.
At the same time that they unleashed the Moon Breaker, the Sul’at used the shadowy powers of blood magic to empower two other potent artifacts—two Orbs of Dragonkind, one of gold and one of crimson, created through the forced sacrifice of thousands of elven slaves and hidden in the dark shrine of the ancient giant god Rom-Praxis that had been constructed beneath the Oasis of Blood. The Sul’at titans were all too aware that their pursuit of the forbidden rites of sacrificial blood magic might draw down the wrath of the dragons upon their heads, so they created the Orbs to serve as the last line of defense.
The dragons of Argonessen watched all of this tragedy unfold, weeping to see their most precious gift so polluted with evil. They observed from afar as the aftermath of the giants’ involvement in blood sacrilege gave rise to various magical plagues and arcane curses that swept the jungle continent.
Date: -38,000 YK
The surviving giant civilizations of the Sul’at League and the Cul’sir Empire never quite recovered from the events of the quori invasion. Horrible arcane curses and plagues swept through the land as a result of the Moon Breaker cataclysm and the blood magic that had been practiced to initiate it, and the elves and drow used the opportunity provided by these catastrophes to rebel against their giant masters some thirty-nine thousand years ago.
At that time, the elves hardly resembled the proud, powerful race they have become, but they carried the spark of magic within them, even if they were more gifted with divine magic rather than the arcane, like their haughty eladrin cousins back in Thelanis. As the decades passed, the elf slaves concealed the fact that they had been learning to practice magic from their giant masters, nurturing these skills to a greater degree with each passing generation. Contemporary Aereni know little of this time. The extant histories only reliably begin tracking the elves’ history—magical or otherwise—with their escape from Xen’drik. But the legend of the elves’ grand, race-defining escape is still told to all Aereni, forming the foundation of their acceptance of death and reverence for their ancestors in the form of the undying.
As all good legends do, the Aereni story begins with a hero, an elf slave named Aeren Kriaddal. Aeren served a powerful giant shaman for the greater part of her life. Eventually earning the powerful creature’s trust, Aeren was allowed to observe and even aid in the giant’s most potent rituals, all of which involved blood sacrifice. Through this participation, she learned to cast simple spells.
One day, Aeren was ordered by her master to retrieve the day’s sacrifices for the ritual. Kept in a small pen near the giant’s house, these sacrifices typically consisted of livestock or captured wild animals. This day, however, Aeren opened the door to the large pen and found that it contained only a single small figure: an unconscious female elf. In a numb haze, Aeren took the elf slowly back to her master’s abode. Her conditioning was too thorough for her to do anything else, and on some level, she doubted her master meant to slaughter her fellow elf simply for the purpose of enhancing his magic.
Aeren’s assumption was wrong.
The giant shaman plunged a knife—a weapon the size of a large great sword in an elf’s hands—into the elf, spilling her blood to power a potent magical ritual. Horror struck Aeren just as cruelly. The magic released by the sacrificial ritual was more potent than any Aeren had seen her master perform before. Despite her shock at the death of the sacrifice, the portion of her mind fascinated with magic took note of the power released by the sacrifice of a sentient being like an elf (as opposed to that of a mere beast). But the betrayal of her trust in the giant shaman seeded a new thought into Aeren’s mind: revolt against those who would treat elven lives no better than those of cattle.
Aeren began to carefully and slowly build a secret contingent of like-minded slaves, including a few who were eager pupils of the magic Aeren could teach. From these unpromising beginnings, the revolution nurtured the seeds of magical lore, and slowly expanded it with each passing year. Eventually, the elves began divine and arcane magical experiments of their own. The elven slaves at first recorded their trials and successes on pilfered scraps of parchment and leather, but the thefts were too risky—the giants might find them out. Instead, they found that their own blood was an ideal ink, and the bones of their own dead served as a perfect record for their findings. The giants suspected nothing.
Aeren never forgot the power unleashed by the sacrifice of one of her own race, and she conducted her own secret experiments apart from those of her conspirators, always seeking to unleash the power of blood just as the giants did. She had no desire to sacrifice her own people for any reason, but she felt that she was close to recognizing some key element.
Aeren’s giant master felt the same way. Many more elves passed across the giant shaman’s sacrificial altar but to no greater effect. Those who were sacrificed wailed in their chains if conscious, asking for release, or fought wildly to avoid the drugs that would render them mutely accepting of the giant shaman’s sacrificial knife.
With a flash of intuition, Aeren finally recognized the missing element one day after a particularly vicious sacrifice. Each victim was unwilling. Even when unconscious or drugged, the slaves’ souls cried out for life, not death. Aeren’s insight fired her with steely determination. In the wake of her hard-won knowledge, it was finally time to initiate the elves’ escape from Xen’drik.
Aeren shared her theories on the power of blood sacrifice with the trusted core of her secret resistance movement. With this precious knowledge, they hatched a daring plan for the elves to escape the captivity of the giants. But secrecy, even among the elf slaves, was vital, lest betrayal ruin all their years of hidden labor. Of all the thousands of elves held in captivity, Aeren selected only one hundred others to share the magical knowledge necessary to free the elves, as well as the exact time of the escape.
When the appointed day of freedom came, Aeren walked into her master’s chambers. All across Xen’drik, her cohort of conspirators did the same. They all spoke the final words of a terrible ritual, prepared in advance over many months. The ritual was powered by the sacrifice of all the collected elf heroes. In that instant, all these participating elves, scattered across the continent in key locations, gave up their lives. Mighty detonations of arcane power were born flaming into the world. Giant citadels fell, towns were expunged of their giant populations—and elves every where saw the signal for revolt. Led by agents of Aeren and her inner circle, the elf slaves slipped away in the tumult.
During the Flight of the Slaves, as the elves call their exodus, a powerful, mysterious elf cleared the way for the fleeing elves of Xen’drik, diverting giant patrols, guiding lost groups of elves,and even obliterating obstacles (giant or otherwise) in displays of blazing power. Upon arriving at the northeastern coast of Xen’drik, the freed slaves discovered a journal, prepared by Aeren and placed within a platinum urn. Carried to the shore by an unwitting messenger, the journal documented the ritual that resulted in the great sacrifice of the elf heroes, as well as Aeren’s notes on the rite the elves eventually came to call the Ritual of Undying. Aeren, unlike the other elven heroes of the revolt, did not perish. The influx of positive, radiant energy from the astral dominion of Irian during the final ritual sustained her existence even as it ended her biological life. Aeren Kriaddal was transformed into the first of the undying, though to protect this secret the elves claimed that Aeren had died in the revolt, a claim that most scholars today still repeat. The freed slaves escaped in rafts and boats they crafted by the thousands across the Thunder Sea to the small, tropical island continent that lay south of Khorvaire. They carried with them all the possessions they could manage, including in some cases livestock and even horses. The elves named their new land Aerenal, or “Aeren’s Rest” in the Elven tongue.
But the giants were not willing to let the entire underpinnings of their civilization—elven slave labor—simply walk away. The giants, threatened again with destruction so soon after having forced the quori to return to the Plane of Dreams, were wholly unprepared to fight another war. Faced with losing the tattered remnants of their empires to the elves’ rebellion and flight, the giants decided to unleash the power of the same grotesque blood rites they had used to stop the quori on their rebellious slaves.
Before the giants could unleash such earth-shaking destruction a second time, and before they could reach the Oasis of Blood to claim the Orbs of Dragonkind that might have been used to spare them from draconic retribution, the dragons of Argonessen decided that their former protégés would not be allowed to repeat their cataclysmic mistake. In a display of draconic power that has not been seen since the Light of Siberys and the Eyes of Chronepsis drafted thousands of other dragons into a military force beyond human comprehension. This draconic armada descended upon Xen’drik. The flights of dragons blotted out the sun and for the first time since their epic war with the fiends, the full might of Argonessen was brought to bear. In less than a week, the dragons cast down the last of the giants and expunged the titans’ empires with their elemental fury and epic magic. When their wrath was spent, the dragons had wreaked almost as much havoc on a continental scale as they had acted to prevent. As a race, they lamented their choice to share their arcane power with the giants. To the present day, that dreadful error is a stain on the memory of all dragonkind and it is one the masters of Argonessen intend never to repeat.
The giant civilizations literally disappeared under this fearsome draconic assault, wiped from the face of Eberron. The drow, many of whom had remained loyal to their giant masters and actually fought against the elven rebels, chose to either view their elven cousins as weak for leaving Xen’drik rather than taking the fight to the giants (the Vulkoori) or as traitors to the giants’ cause (the Sulatar). Some wanted nothing to do with either side and just wanted to find safety from the dragons attack (the Umbragen). Most of the drow went into hiding in the Xen’drik countryside or rode out the destruction underground, while the elves had fled to the island-continent of Aerenal that they named after the leader of their mass exodus, the she-elf Aeren. Most of the dark elves eventually divided between the primitive jungle-dwelling drow tribesmen called Vulkoori who worshiped the scorpion-god Vulkoor (an aspect of the Mockery), the sophisticated civilization of powerful underground-dwelling dark elves known as the Umbragen, and the Sulatar, a nation of fire-worshiping drow who maintained the aggressive military and religious traditions of the Sul’at League, their former masters.
Following the dragons’ attack, the giants’ titan overlords disappeared from Xen’drik without any explanation for where they had gone, leaving the lesser giants deeply disturbed at their forebears’ absence and simultaneously somewhat relieved that the leaders who had led them to destruction were gone. The more primitive descendants of this period’s giants in later years went so far as to leave sacrificial offerings to the absent titans to keep them appeased—and to keep them from returning. The dragons laid several mighty enchantments upon Xen’drik that were intended to prevent the reemergence of a giant civilization whose arcane knowledge and lack of restraint could threaten all life (especially draconic lives) on Eberron. Additionally, the abhorrent blood magic unleashed by the giants to create and power the Moon Breaker not only left their continent in ruins but also tainted that land with many dangerous arcane curses.
The Travelers’ Curse warped distance and terrain, making a journey from one point to another in Xen’drik extremely unpredictable. As a result, the same trip could take only days on one occasion and months the next. In addition, the terrain of Xen’drik magically alters its climate and condition at random. A patch of ground hosting a steamy, overgrown jungle one night becomes a misty coniferous forest with the morning sun. Glaciers melt into lakes in hours and deserts sprout temperate flora overnight.
The Du’rashka Tul or “madness of crowds” in the Giant tongue was a powerful arcane curse leveled on Xen’drik by the dragons themselves—a complex epic ward intended to prevent the giants from ever rising to power again. According to legend, the curse affects any group of intelligent beings able to establish a sizable civilization on the forsaken continent, so that they are suddenly gripped by homicidal rage and spread out to kill everything in their path (including each other). The giants, drow and other local peoples of Xen’drik became terrified of this curse in later years and avoided organizing into cities or large social groups, ensuring that Xen’drik’s natives remained as relatively primitive hunter-gatherer tribal societies over the millennia.
Under these difficult conditions, the Sul’at, Cul’sir and the other civilized giants slowly devolved over the millennia into the far more primitive true giant subraces of the present time— storm, cloud, fire, frost, stone, jungle and hill giants. In many cases, the giants’ elemental nature became more pronounced as they devolved. Some giants fled the devastation to Dolurrh, the Shadowfell, where they were altered by exposure to that mirror world’s shadowy necromantic energies and became the dangerous death giants of that foul plane. The various giantkin races—trolls, ogres, verbeeg, firbolgs, and the like—are all related to these races, though they spread across the other continents from Xen’drik.
Explorers in Xen’drik, Q’barra, or Adar in the present might stumble across a weathered draconic statue or faded image scratched into a cavern wall, but the dragons left few traces of their ancient dominion over the world at the end of the Age of Demons…with one exception. The giants of Xen’drik were the most advanced humanoids of the age after the Dragon-Fiend Wars, and they had learned much in their interactions with the dragons.
Those giants who worked with Ourelonastrix and his students used draconic magic to carve out empires and dominate their continent. The arcane arts spread, and soon the giants began to explore new approaches to this form of magic. As powerful as they were, the dragons were mired in tradition, and certain paths of magical inquiry they simply refused to tread. The giants of certain long-dead empires, such as the Cul’sir Empire, the Sul’at League and the Group of Eleven, had no such qualms—their exploration of blood magic and other dark arts like necromancy, shadow, and pact magic diverged wildly from the codified teachings of Ourelonastrix and the other draconic Sovereigns who had first tutored the giants. Nonetheless, the dragons remained uninvolved. The elder wyrms of many flights studied the Draconic Prophecy but agreed that it was best not to manipulate its outcome. They simply traced its myriad paths and watched as fate chose its course.
Then the quori came to Xen’drik from the Plane of Dreams. The motivation for this extraplanar incursion remains a mystery, but the giants’ records portray the quori simply as ruthless invaders seeking to capture the power and wealth of the giants’ great civilizations. Other evidence suggests that the quori merely sought refuge from a disaster on their own plane or even retaliation against acts of interplanar aggression instigated by the titan lords of Xen’drik. Some scholars have recently suggested that the quori of this age, who belonged to a different race than the quori who serve the Dreaming Dark of Dal Quor today, were aware that the Quor Tarai, the guiding spirit and collective consciousness of the Plane of Dreams, at this time known as the Dreaming Heart, was soon to change, wiping out their entire species. Much like the quori and Inspired of today, the quori of this period may have initiated the invasion and attempted conquest of the world in the hope of preventing the dreams of the thinking beings of Eberron from causing the change in the Quor Tarai and the destruction of their species.
Whatever the root of the Quori-Giant War, it was a struggle that lasted for long centuries. Powerful magical and psionic forces were unleashed by both sides, and, in time, nearly all the arcane knowledge the giants possessed was turned to the war effort. In Argonnessen, students of the Draconic Prophecy warned that this struggle could shake the planes of existence themselves, but the Conclave insisted that the dragons remain aloof. The outcome is known to any student of history; the militaristic giants of the Sul’at League unleashed the doomsday weapon that was the Moon Breaker on the quori. This eldritch machine, created using the foul sacrificial rites of blood magic that were anathema to the dragons, destroyed Eberron’s thirteenth moon Crya and tore the entire plane of Dal Quor from its orbit around Eberron, bringing a sudden and terrible end to the conflict. The Quor Tarai soon turned, the Dreaming Heart became the Dreaming Dark and the race of quori who had fought the war was wiped from existence and replaced by the current foul natives of the Plane of Dreams.
The giants’ risky gambit devastated their continent and shook the very foundations of Eberron. Their former slaves, the elves and the drow, rose up against their weakened masters. Desperate, the giants began recklessly harnessing their ultimate magical power once more, preparing to unleash the same sacrificial magical forces that had vanquished the quori on the elven rebels. Perhaps they thought victory was possible, but many historians believe it was pure nihilism—if the Titans could not rule the world, they would just as soon destroy it.
The dragons saw the giants’ threat to the world traced out in the Prophecy. Shocked and alarmed at the effect the loss of the thirteenth moon had already had on Eberron and the rest of the cosmos, this time the dragons chose to act. A scaled army poured forth from Argonnessen, with flights of all colors led by the militant wyrms of the Light of Siberys.
The conflict was brutal, and its outcome never in doubt. The dragons had no interest in holding territory. They made no effort to avoid civilian casualties; they brought fire, fang, and epic magic to bear in the most destructive ways imaginable. In the end, nothing was left of the proud giant nations of Xen’drik. Giant, elf and all the other cultures of that continent were laid low by the dragons, and powerful eldritch curses enacted on Xen’drik by the great wyrms of the Draconic Conclave of Argonessen ensured that the giants would never again create a civilization advanced enough to threaten the world.
Their mission accomplished, the dragons returned to Argonnessen to brood. All agreed that the people of Xen’drik would never have posed such a threat if the dragons had not shared the secrets of arcane magic with them. The Conclave called the event kurash Ourelonastrix in Draconic— Aureon’s Folly—and forbade any flight from sharing the secrets of Argonnessen with “lesser beings.”
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After the dragons’ attack on Xen’drik, the surviving giants of that continent reverted to living the lives of primitive, nomadic tribesmen in the ruins of their shattered civilization as the dragons returned to their secluded continent of Argonessen and the elves settled Aerenal.
Meanwhile, on Khorvaire, the first of the goblin kingdoms rose to power in the region that would one day become the nations of Breland and Darguun. Khorvaire’s native humanoids included the three related goblin races, the lizardfolk tribes of the Talenta Plains, the gnomes of Zilargo (who may have been fey transplants from the mirror world of Thelanis like the original elves), the nomadic halflings, also from the Talenta Plains, and the even more physically imposing orcs, whose savage but noble tribes of hunter-gatherers roamed the forests and swamps that dominated the western half of that continent. The goblin races included goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears. In most of the goblin kingdoms, these three related races were dominated by a hobgoblin aristocracy that governed according to the dictum that the strong ruled over the weak, and since the hobgoblins were far larger than their goblin counterparts and far more intelligent than most of the bugbears, they were usually the rulers.
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As the goblin civilizations advanced, they were followed by the rise of the first true orc nations in western Khorvaire, in the areas known in later times as the Shadow Marches and the Eldeen Reaches. These orcish states soon competed with the goblin kingdoms for resources and territory.
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The Undying Court first appeared in Aerenal some twenty-five thousand years ago. Over the millennia following their exodus from slavery in Xen’drik, the elves of Aerenal came to revere their ancient dead as incarnate deities, seeking advice from undying councilors and petitioning for their favor. For the elves, following the example of the heroes who had won their freedom from the giants of Xen’drik, death was not something to be feared; instead, it was embraced and ultimately welcomed. Each Aereni family expressed this attitude in a different way. Some wore intricate death masks. Others tattooed their faces with skulls or similar patterns. Members of the family line of Jhaelian went so far as to mimic the appearance of the undying while they were still alive, using magical and alchemical substances to induce rigor and apparent decomposition of the flesh.
Unlike undead creatures whose animating energies were drawn from Dolurrh, the deathless elves who came to comprise the Undying Court were animated by radiant energy drawn from the plane of Irian using special necromantic rituals first discovered by Aeren herself. The undying were powerful beings of a generally benevolent cast.
As for the undying themselves, they were concentrated in the great cities of the jungled Aereni interior. An elven family estate might have an honor guard of undying soldiers and an undying councilor advising the living elders of the line, but the majority of the undying gathered in Aerenal’s City of the Dead, Shae Mordai. Regardless of their family origin, all Aereni respected the undying as heroes of their race and always treated them with respect and deference. Many humans who hear tales of the elves’ culture assume that Aerenal is a land of vampires and zombies, when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. An undying soldier or counselor is an undead creature, but it is charged with radiant energy and sustained by the devotion of its descendants. Vampires, liches, and their ilk are abhorrent creatures that destroy life to preserve their own existence, and they are seen as a perversion of the undying by the elves. The creation of mindless undead, such as common zombies and skeletons, was seen by the Aereni as an unforgivable insult to the body and soul of the deceased.
Two forces actually governed the island-continent of Aerenal. The Sibling Kings held all temporal power. By ancient tradition, the elven nation had to be ruled by a bonded brother and sister. When either sibling died, the Undying Court selected a new pair to rule. The Sibling Kings were seen as the living embodiment of Aerenal, and the conduit for the divine power of the Undying Court.
The northern steppes of Aerenal were inhabited by a different cultural grouping of Aereni elves called the Tairnadal. The Tairnadal preferred the steppes because there they could better care for the warhorses their ancestors had brought from Xen’drik. The Tairnadal had a more active and aggressive culture than the Aereni elves of the jungle. They sought to honor their ancestors by emulating their heroic deeds in the present. In the last few millennia, many younger elves of southern bloodlines left their homes to join the Tairnadal, and what was once a minor sect slowly became a significant force on the elves’ island-continent.
There were three major groups among the Tairnadal. The Valaes Tairn was the largest; these elves believed that glory in battle was the highest goal, regardless of the nature of the foe. The two smaller groups were the Silaes Tairn, who were determined to return to Xen’drik and reclaim the ancient homeland of the elves, and the Draleus Tairn, who wished to destroy the dragons of Argonnessen after the Elf-Dragon Wars began.
Relations between the Tairnadal and the elves of the Undying Court are cordial. They honor the same ancestors and respect the shared blood that flows through their veins, though the Tairnadal were served by a different clerical order known as the Keepers of the Past who venerated the spirits of ancestors already passed rather than the undying. The southern Aereni feel that the Tairnadal waste their blood by refusing to become undying after death; the northern elves believe the elves of the jungle spend too much time dreaming of the past instead of acting in the present.
Following the rise of the Undying Court on Aerenal, there was the first recorded skirmish between the elves and the dragons of Argonessen, which set a pattern of long periods of peace punctuated by short, devastating battles every few hundred years between the Aereni and small flights of the dragons. The source of this conflict was the emergence of the Undying Court as the primary religious and political authority of the elven nation, for the dragons detested necromantic magic of any kind and came to believe that the undying actually represented a threat to the fulfillment of the Prophecy—or at least to outcomes that favored the dragons’ preferences.
Some scholars claim Aeren Kriaddal’s journal, left for the leaders of the elven uprising, contains more than the secrets to the Ritual of Undying. These whispers imply that the elf was inspired with the gift of prophecy just before the first ritual and sacrifice that initiated the rebellion against the giants, and laid out a plan for the elves to follow once they were free. Supposedly the undying now work to fulfill this prophecy in their own patient way, and this pursuit is what drives a faction of dragons on Argonnessen mad with rage. This prophecy, these same scholars believe, is what has led to the dragon assaults on Aerenal over the course of so many years. These dragons seem to believe that the prophecy of the Aereni conflicts in some way with the pursuit of their own Draconic Prophecy.
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The culturally advanced goblin clans of the Dhakaani united the other goblin nations of Khorvaire sixteen thousand years ago to create the Empire of Dhakaan, the greatest civilization the goblin peoples of Eberron had ever known. The foundation of the empire was the Dhakaani’s great martial skill, which allowed them to forge a goblin state that stretched across most of central and eastern Khorvaire and was ruled by a powerful dynasty of hobgoblin emperors and empresses. The empire had come into existence when the most skilled of the goblins’ duur’kala or “dirge singers,” a hobgoblin bard named Jhazaal Dhakaan, convinced the six greatest hobgoblin warlords of the time to unite their clans and choose her as their first empress. Out of respect and admiration for Jhazaal’s vision of a glorious future for the goblin people and leadership in creating the new goblin state, these warlords, immortalized in Dhakaani legends as the“Six Kings,” agreed to name the empire after her. It is said that Jhazaal could win the heart of a listener with but a word, or bring down an army with a scream. Whatever personal powers she possessed, she crafted many powerful magical artifacts that were used for centuries by the warriors and duur’kala of Dhakaan. The Dhakaani were able to come to terms with the gnomes of Zilargo through an accord in which the gnomes promised obedience and tribute to the Dhakaani monarch in return for continued autonomy in their own homeland. The goblins had less cordial relations with the lizardfolk clans of the Talenta Plains, who resisted the imposition of Dhakaani rule over those lands. The lizardfolk were subsequently forced to flee by the Dhakaani’s greater numbers and superior steel weapons into the jungles of Q’barra where the goblins did not bother to follow. Their clans still reside there to this day.
One of the major differences between the Dhakaani and the other goblins of Khorvaire that allowed them to achieve such success was the degree of interracial cooperation within a clan. Among the other goblin peoples of this time, the strong ruled the weak. Leadership was founded on fear, and the weaker races hated the stronger tyrants.
Among the Dhakaani goblins, this situation was not the case. Each species had a role to serve in society, and each embraced this role. The hobgoblins ruled not through force of arms but because the goblins and bugbears respected their ability to maintain structure and discipline. The strength of the bugbears was turned against the enemies of the clan while the goblins served as the heart and soul of the society’s economy.
Hobgoblins had always formed the foundation of Dhakaani society, from its beginnings to the present day. They were the most disciplined of the goblins, both in battle and at court. The hobgoblins ruled the Dhakaani state as the nobility and in the person of the emperor, and their power was rarely contested; their leadership skills had been proven over the centuries so that the bugbears and goblins accepted their respective and subordinate political roles in Dhakaani society.
A Dhakaani army was both tightly structured and surprisingly flexible. Their military was based around small units of goblin infantry that could quickly adapt tactics and formations to evolving combat conditions. Hobgoblins were trained to work together, using techniques like flanking and pincer movements to maximize their effectiveness against powerful opponents. Dhakaani hobgoblins rarely adhered to any sort of code of honor in battle (unless they belonged to a special Dhakaani warrior sect known as the samurai), nor did they seek glory like the bugbear berserkers. A common hobgoblin soldier took pride in his skills but in battle his only goal was to achieve an objective as quickly and efficiently as possible, whether it was killing the enemy, seizing agate, or scouting a location. While there were a few exceptions in goblin folklore, military service was traditionally seen as a role solely for male hobgoblins.
Females, however, had many important roles in Dhakaani society. The most common form of arcane magic among the Dhakaani was that of the bard, and this innate talent typically manifested mostly among the females of the clans. In the Goblin tongue, Dhakaani bards were known as duur’kala, “dirge singers;” they were treasured both for their abilities to inspire troops and to perform healing magic. The duur’kala were the spiritual leaders of the Dhakaani. They used tales of past glory and ancestral deeds to bind goblin communities together and inspire them to a greater future. Alchemy, healing, and diplomacy were also seen as female arts; the male hobgoblins fought battles, and the females healed their wounds, both physical and political.
From an early age, bugbears were raised to think of themselves as the heroes and martyrs of Dhakaani civilization. They were taught to believe that their strength was the single greatest weapon of the Empire. Most were eager to prove their mettle and worth in battle. In combat, bugbear barbarians served as skirmishers and shock troops, smashing into the ranks of their enemies and using their immense strength to scatter and break formations while the strictly disciplined hobgoblin ranks moved up behind them.
With their prolific rate of reproduction, goblins formed the largest segment of any Dhakaani community. Dhakaani goblins received far more respect than their counterparts in other goblin cultures; most filled the roles of peasants and tradesmen, performing non-combat tasks that supported the hobgoblin and bugbear soldiers on the Empire’s front lines.
Thousands of years before humans came to the continent of Khorvaire, one of the greatest cities established by the Dhakaani Empire was the hobgoblin metropolis of Ja’Shaarat (Goblin for “Bright Blade”), which was nestled by the Dagger River in the southern region of what is now the Kingdom of Breland. The early Dhakaani architects carved their city into the stone instead of raising towers above the ground. As a result, the halls of Ja’shaarat extended beneath the surface of the world. The goblin miners pushed into Khyber and discovered that a vast lake of molten magma that burned with a supernatural heat blazed beneath the metropolis. The blades and armor of the greatest Dhakaani warriors were forged there and tempered in khaar draguus, the “blood of the dragon” as the magma lake became known. Later, the Dhakaani architects raised monolithic buildings that covered each of the plateaus over the Dagger River where a manifest zone to Syrania existed. These constructions would later serve as the foundation for Sharn, the City of Towers, the largest metropolis of Khorvaire in the present age.
When the alignment of the planes brought the daelkyr and their army of horrific aberrations to Eberron centuries later (see below), the Dhakaani Empire fell before them and Ja’Shaarat, like the other goblin cities, was utterly devastated in the fighting. The goblin empire never recovered from the conflict and its greatest city was never restored. The goblin tribes that hid in the city’s ruins following the Daelkyr War renamed their desolate home Duur’sharaat, “Blade of Sorrows.”
At the same time that the Empire of Dhakaan was beginning its rise to power, the Gatekeeper sect of druids first appeared among the orcs of western Khorvaire. Vvaraak, a rogue female black dragon of Argonessen, was a Child of Eberron, a dragon dedicated to the service of the Progenitor of all life. Vvaraak had foreseen in the Draconic Prophecy that another great disaster like the Quori-Giant War would threaten the very existence of Eberron at some time in the future. When the Conclave of Argonessen showed no interest in acting to prevent this potential catastrophe, Vvaraak abandoned the continent of her birth and traveled to the Shadow Marches in western Khorvaire, the home of the orcish peoples. She taught the orcs the basics of druidic magic and how to channel the primal power of Eberron herself, an alternative to the arcane and divine powers already known to most of the peoples of the world. Vvaraak became the founder of the first true sect of druids in the world.
In time, druidic lore became the spiritual heart of orcish culture. The orcish druids who formed the Gatekeepers eventually passed on this knowledge millennia later to other peoples like the shifters and humans who called the Eldeen Reaches home. This spread of Vvaraak’s teachings led to the gradual development of other druidic traditions in the Reaches, such as those of the Wardens of the Wood, the Ashbound, the Greensingers and the Children of Winter. But Vvaraak warned the Gatekeepers that the druidic knowledge she had taught them was intended for a specific purpose— one day, the Prophecy foretold, the Gatekeepers would save the world.
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Twelve millennia ago, a large number of dwarven clans migrated from their ancestral home on the arctic continent of the Frostfell to the Ironroot Mountains of northeastern Khorvaire to escape the oppression of the frost giants—ancient colonists from Xen’drik—who governed much of that frigid land. Though the true origins of the dwarven kingdoms of Khorvaire are now lost to the mists of prehistory, it is known that soon after their arrival in Khorvaire a unified dwarven nation was established by the clans from the Frostfell that spread deep beneath the Ironroots. Within this kingdom, recalled in dwarven legend as the Kingdom of Stone, it came to pass that twelve dwarven warriors were exiled to the surface for the commission of crimes that produced barbarism and unrest. These exiles were forced to leave their underground homes with their followers by Lord Kordran Mror, the ruler of the Kingdom of Stone. The gateways to the Kingdom of Stone below were closed off using powerful runic magic and the dwarven exiles were told by Lord Mror that they would remain apart from their brethren in the deeps until they had discovered the honor that their barbaric ways had prevented them from earning. Alongside the exiles, a clan of wardens was sent to the lands above to watch over these gates and reopen them when the time came—a clan called Kundarak.
For thousands of years to come, these exile dwarven clans fought among themselves for control of the lands that they ironically named the Mror Holds, both for dominance and for the right to return to the Kingdom of Stone. The Mror dwarves also repeatedly fought the original inhabitants of the Ironroot Mountains, the orcish clans known as the Jhorash’tar, for control over the region’s rich mineral resources of iron, copper, gems and other precious metals. Even the appearance of the Mark of Warding among the Kundarak clan did nothing to stem the inter-dwarven conflict; indeed, it fast became a source of bitterness and distrust among the other clans, who developed no such dragonmarks. When Prince Karrn ir’Wynarn annexed the lands around the Ironroot Mountains for his father King Galifar I several years before the founding of the united Kingdom of Galifar on Khorvaire, the fractious Mror clans were easily subdued by the human armies.
As it happened, the dwarves’ subjugation by Galifar proved to be the instrument of their salvation. Forced to set aside their violent feuds by their human overlords, the dwarven exiles created a common culture and found the honor they had long sought. In the end, though, this understanding came too late. When the heirs of Kundarak, at last, opened the sealed runic gates for the rest of the Holds, the Kingdom of Stone was gone, its people destroyed by the invasion of the daelkyr while the twelve Mror clans had made war on each other.
–9,000 YK
The warlike Valaes Tairn sect of Aereni elves established a colony on southern Khorvaire in what is now the present-day Kingdom of Valenar some nine millennia before the founding of Galifar. Peaceful coexistence between the elves and the Dhakaani goblins did not last for long and the elves eventually launched a great war with the Dhakaani Empire that ended inconclusively for both sides. The Valaes Tairn elves abandoned their colony to the goblins when another clash with the dragons threatened Aerenal and their scimitars were needed to defend the elven homeland. The number of Valaes Tairn who were needed in Aerenal would have left the colony all but undefended before the advance of the Dhakaani, so the elves simply abandoned it rather than make a hopeless, though glorious, last stand. But the Valaes Tairn promised one day to honor the spirits of their ancestors by returning to Khorvaire.
–8,000 YK
The Daelkyr War decimated the western reaches of Khorvaire when nine thousand years ago the Far Realm of Xoriat, the Plane of Madness, became coterminous with Eberron and the daelkyr lords and their terrible armies of aberrations—mind flayers, beholders, neogi, foulspawn, dolgrims and dolgaunts—invaded the world. Determined to refashion Eberron into another nightmare version of their native Xoriat, the daelkyr and their aberrations passed through a planar portal to arrive in western Khorvaire. Their army was met by the legions of the Dhakaani Empire and the conflict between the two forces raged for millennia. In the course of the war, the Dhakaani Empire was brought nearly to ruin as the powerful flesh-shapers and their hideous minions proved more than a match for the Dhakaani’s finest bugbear warriors and hobgoblin samurai.
The daelkyr would have succeeded in their insane plan to begin reshaping the natural order of Eberron into an extension of the Plane of Madness if not for the intervention of the orcish druids of the Gatekeeper sect. The druids, led by the female orc Great Druid Rasha’Torrn, lured the main thrust of the daelkyr invasion into the Shadow Marches of western Khorvaire and unleashed the full, primal fury of Eberron upon the foul lords of Xoriat and their aberrations. The six daelkyr lords known to have survived the onslaught were then locked by a ritual led by the mightiest of the Gatekeepers’Great Druids deep below ground in Khyber with their surviving aberrations. The power of the Gatekeepers’ druidic wards kept the daelkyr from setting foot on the surface of Eberron again, though their foul servants could still come up from the depths at will to spread fear and death. The daelkyr were not immobilized in Khyber like the fiendish Overlords but could move around at will through the Dragon Below. The Gatekeepers’ wards also shifted Xoriat in its orbit around the world so that the Far Realm would not again become coterminous with Eberron or be able to touch the world until these arcane seals were destroyed.
In time, the daelkyr’s contained but subterranean influence led to the development of the Cults of the Dragon Below, foul religious organizations dedicating to worshiping Khyber and her servants, the daelkyr and the fiendish Lords of Dust, in the hopes of bringing on the end of the world and releasing Khyber from her planetary prison. In contrast, the orcs of the Gatekeeper sect remained ever vigilant for signs that their primal wards on Khyber were weakening or that another planar incursion from Xoriat was imminent. In the orcish druids’ view, the daelkyr and all aberrations presented the greatest threat to the natural order of Eberron that they were sworn to uphold since they were inherently not part of the workings of the natural world, much like the undead, and sought to destroy the delicate balance between the three draconic Progenitors that sustained all life.
The daelkyr were the lords of the Far Realm of Xoriat, the Plane of Madness. A daelkyr resembled a perfectly formed athletic human male, possessing unearthly beauty and pupilless white eyes. Despite this outward appearance, daelkyr were actually sexless and did not reproduce, since they were formed from the chaotic fabric of the plane of Xoriat itself.
A daelkyr’s horrible touch caused disease and biological corruption, and its very presence could trigger madness and confusion. At least six daelkyr (possibly more) inhabit Eberron in the present day. The surviving commanders of the daelkyr army that invaded Khorvaire millennia ago, they were sealed deep in Khyber and cut off from their home plane. For thousands of years, the daelkyr have bided their time in the depths of Khyber, waiting for Xoriat to be able to touch Eberron once more.
The daelkyr are immortal and endlessly patient, and their manner of thinking is almost impossible for mortals (or even other planar denizens) to understand. For the daelkyr, destroying worlds appears to be a form of art, and until Xoriat and Eberron are again linked, the daelkyr are indulging their other sordid escapades. Some are poets, musicians, or sculptors, although their works are invariably bizarre and alien to human senses. Their preferred canvas is flesh, for they are the makers of monsters. Dolgrims, dolgaunts, foulspawn, beholders, mind flayers, neogi, tsochar and other hideous aberrations are the legacy of the daelkyr—living weapons created expressly to destroy life. The subterranean citadel of a daelkyr lord usually supports a garrison of dolgrims, dolgaunt and foulspawn lieutenants, and illithid commanders. Each daelkyr also has its personal biological creations, reflecting its own aesthetic tastes. One might have a preference for oozes. Another breeds psionic vermin, while a third crafts hideous and deadly carnivorous plants. Their experiments— creating new races by twisting existing creatures into new forms—take time. A daelkyr can magically shape change a creature into something else easily enough; however, creating a new species of aberration such as the dolgrim and dolgaunts (created from Dhakaani hobgoblins captured during the Daelkyr War), foulspawn (created from almost any “normal” race infected by the taint of Xoriat) or neogi (fleshcrafted from the dwarves of the Ironroot Mountains) takes years to accomplish.
The ancient seals placed by the Gatekeepers trap the daelkyr beneath Eberron and keep Xoriat from becoming coterminous with the world again, but the daelkyr have not made a concerted effort to destroy these seals. Their motives are inscrutable—above all things, the daelkyr are the lords of the Plane of Madness. Insanity and corruption are the currency they deal in.
–4,000 YK
Terribly weakened by the Daelkyr War, the Dhakaani Empire was shattered by infighting and constant civil strife in the wake of the conflict, eventually leading to the collapse of the great goblin civilization into scattered goblin tribes. A small grouping of five goblin clans descended from the Dhakaani known as the Heirs of Dhakaan managed to maintain the culture and history of their lost empire in the region of Khorvaire that became the present-day goblin nation of Darguun. These Dhakaani heirs never gave up hope that one day they would be able to recover the glories of their ancient past even as their races fall back into barbarism.
Like the Dhakaani, the orc nations of the Shadow Marches were also devastated by the Daelkyr War and degenerated into scattered clans that call the Marches home. About half of the orcs pursue a simple, agrarian lifestyle and continue to observe the druidic traditions of the Gatekeepers as taught by the black dragon Vvaraak. Unfortunately, the psychological scars of the Daelkyr War were most deep among the orcs of the Marches and at least half of the clans in the region eventually gave up the benevolent spiritual traditions of the Gatekeepers for the worship of Khyber. Despite the all-inclusive name for these beliefs as the Cults of the Dragon Below, these cults had nothing in common beyond devotion to the darkly insane forces of the daelkyr and fiends imprisoned within Khyber by the Gatekeepers and the couatl. They did not communicate with one another and did not usually share the same aims or religious interpretations.
Although the destruction visited upon Xen’drik by the dragons was monumental, some of the continent’s denizens did survive. While the dragons brooded, elven refugees established the nation of Aerenal on that tropical island-continent after fleeing Xen’drik. Thousands of years of research into necromancy and the magical teachings of Argonnessen produced the Undying Court, an alliance of undying elves with a collective magical and divine might that rivaled the fiendish Overlords of the first age of the world. Since that time—nearly twenty-five thousand years before the founding of Galifar—dragons and elves have been at war. The tides of strife ebb and flow, and centuries might pass between battles... but sooner or later the dragons return to fight once more. The basis of this age-old conflict, and its conduct is another of the mysteries of Argonnessen.
Many find it impossible to imagine that the Aereni could stand against the force that utterly destroyed the giant civilizations of Xen’drik. In truth, the elves have never faced the full power of Argonnessen. The strike on Xen’drik was carried out by the full, unified force of dragonkind; the Elf–Dragon Wars have involved only a few flights from the Light of Siberys, the draconic army of Argonessen. The fact that the Undying Court has been able to hold off the dragons remains an impressive feat, but the undying have never faced the true power that ravaged a continent.
Those who study this puzzling behavior ask: Why not? What motivates this seemingly endless struggle? If the dragons truly wished to eliminate the elves, why do they not commit their full forces to the task? If they do not care enough to do so, why do they continue to fight in the first place?
One theory is that the dragons despise the extensive practice of necromancy, even when it draws on the radiant energy of Irian, but do not view it with the same abhorrence or alarm as the giants’ planar studies and blood magic. Thus, they cannot agree en masse that Aerenal should be laid low.
Another possibility is that the struggle is a form of exercise for the dragons, a proving ground for the younger warriors of the Light of Siberys. Conversely, it might be that the wars are fought to test the elves and harden them for some future conflict foreseen in the Prophecy, just as a soldier will sharpen his blade in preparation for battles to come. The dragons might be unwilling to share the secrets of their arcane power with lesser races, but they can still push the lower creatures to reach their full potential. The long struggle with the dragons has certainly forced the clerics and wizards of the Aereni and the warriors of the Tairnadal to master the arts of battle and magic.
The elder wyrms of Argonnessen offer no explanations for their actions, nor do they negotiate. Only two instances of elves and dragons working side by side are known, and both involve the noble line of the House of Vol. Following the appearance of the Mark of Death (see below), a number of green dragons began working with the Aereni family line of Vol in whom the dragonmark appeared. This alliance produced the half-dragon female Erandis d’Vol. Allies of Vol in the present time claim that her birth was intended to forge a bond between the two races and bring an end to the constant wars.
Others believe that the emerald-skinned dragons sought to gain control of the Mark of Death through their half-dragon offspring. In the end, the birth of Erandis d’Vol did unite Aerenal and Argonnessen... in a quest to eradicate the line of Vol. But this alliance was short-lived and involved minimal communication between the allies. Once the House of Vol fell into shadow, the dragons returned to Argonnessen, and in a few centuries, the cycle of war began anew.
Throughout time, rogue dragons have pursued their own agendas and dreams. Still, in the aftermath of Aureon’s Folly and the destruction of Xen’drik, few dared to share the secrets of Argonnessen with lesser creatures. One such rebel was the Emerald Claw, the father of Erandis d’Vol, and it destroyed him. A more well-regarded rogue was Vvaraak, the black dragon who trained the first Gatekeepers, and brought the secrets of druidic magic to Khorvaire.
A true Child of Eberron, Vvaraak foresaw a disaster that would wound the world itself. The Conclave of Argonessen had no interest in this struggle; just as the dragons had stood aside while the giants of Xen’drik battled the natives of Dal Quor, the elders of the Conclave told Vvaraak that they would act when a clear threat to Argonnessen existed, and not before.
Frustrated, Vvaraak abandoned her elders and her flight, traveled across the world, and began training humanoids and other creatures in the use of druidic magic and primal power. Although she is best known for teaching the orcs of the west coast of Khorvaire, Vvaraak had other students. Some Seren druids (the spiritual leaders of the human barbarians of the Seren Islands, the archipelago off the northern coast of Argonessen that acts as a protective shield against those who seek to reach the dragons’ homeland) attribute their skill to the teachings of the Ebon Mother, and lizardfolk boast adherence to the Gatekeeper druidic sect in both the nation of Q’barra on Khorvaire and Xen’drik. Vvaraak stayed in the Shadow Marches of Khorvaire for less than a century, and her final fate is unknown. Perhaps she lived out her final days in humanoid form, moving among her students and hiding from the angry Eyes of Chronepsis. Perhaps she descended into Khyber to teach the denizens of the deep. Some say that she returned to Argonnessen, that her act of rebellion was actually a carefully calculated move on behalf of the draconic Conclave. If so, it could be that the dragons subtly planned and implemented both the destruction of the Dhakaani Empire and the defeat of the daelkyr.
Of course, it is possible that the invasion of the daelkyr from Xoriat was not the great threat to the natural order Vvaraak foresaw in the future. If this is the case, what monumental danger still lies ahead for the world?
In the wake of the Daelkyr War, one faction of orcs took the Gatekeepers’ philosophy of guardianship to an extreme, believing that they were meant to protect Khorvaire and the rest of Eberron from the fiends and other dark races of the Dragon Below that roamed the portion of northwestern Khorvaire known as the Demon Wastes.
North of the Eldeen Reaches, life gradually seeps out of the earth. The lush forests and great trees slowly fade into a broad tableland of dried soil and cracked volcanic rock. Further north, the elevation rises into the bleak chain of mountains known as the Shadowcrags, then drops dramatically. The land beyond, a highland plateau, is broken into badlands, a network of canyons and mesas that forms a natural labyrinth leading out to a plain of blackened sand and volcanic glass. This is the Demon Wastes—the last remnants of the rakshasa and fiendish civilization that ruled Khorvaire millions of years before the rise of goblins or humans during the Age of Demons. Amid the ruins of infernal cities, fiendish creatures searched for fresh blood while ancient forces watch from the shadows. In this realm of death and desolation, long-forgotten treasures and primeval secrets hid in the blasted wastes and the rakshasas and fiends known as the Lords of Dust plotted endlessly to corrupt the hearts of men.
Those orcs who believed that their duty was to enter the Demon Wastes to prevent its malevolent inhabitants from infecting the rest of Khorvaire were known as the Ghaash’kala, the“ghost guardians” in the Orc tongue. The Ghaash’kala barbarians believed they had been awarded a sacred duty to prevent evil in all its myriad forms from leaving the Demon Wastes. Primarily composed of orcs mingled with a handful of humans and half-orcs, the Ghaash’kala clan members were fierce but not bloodthirsty by nature. They acted to keep travelers from entering the Wastes, preferring to convince with words before drawing weapons. On the other hand, they considered anything that emerged from the Wastes—whether wild beasts, other barbarians, or travelers returning from an expedition—to be hopelessly tainted by exposure to the Wastes’ demonic residents, and they moved against such creatures without mercy.
The Ghaash’kala worshiped a force they called Kalok Shash, Orcish for “the binding flame.”The clerics and shamans of the clans say that the flame consists of the souls of noble warriors and that this force holds the powers of darkness at bay. Kalok Shash is in actuality the same divine force revered by the Church of the Silver Flame that is composed of the collective souls of the celestial couatls, although it could be difficult to convince a templar of the Flame that a branded orc barbarian is a champion of his faith. When Ghaash’kala barbarians rage, they seek to submerge their identity into the flame, drawing on the strengths of the great warriors of the past and losing all fear of death. Noble warriors are often called to serve as paladins—although the Ghaash’kala paladin presents a very different image than the silver-armored knight of the Church.
All in all, the Ghaash’kala clans see it as their sacred duty to guard the Labyrinth passages of the Wastes against escaping fiends, rampaging horrors of the Dragon Below, and other evils that might seek to slip past the Shadowcrags and invade the Eldeen Reaches and beyond. Through the light of the Kalok Shash, new members are constantly called to join the clans and keep the ghost guardians strong lest the dark powers overwhelm them.
The Ghaash’kala clan members were relatively technologically sophisticated as barbarians went and their warriors made use of studded leather armor, steel-bladed weapons and bows. Clan warriors carried the brand of the binding flame on their skin as they believed that these brands helped to protect them from demonic possession. Four Ghaash’kala clans were spread throughout the region of the Demon Wastes known as the Labyrinth, where they share a common priesthood and have strong inter-clan ties with one another to help them carry out their sacred mission.
The Labyrinth is a convoluted series of canyons and depressions carved into the flat highland plain of the Demon Wastes as though by gargantuan claws. No part of Khyber, the Dragon Below, rests so close to the surface of Eberron as in the Labyrinth. In ages past, the orcs that eventually became the Ghaash’kala entered the Labyrinth for the express purpose of keeping the horrors of the Wastes trapped and cut off from the rest of the world. One of the oldest of these clans, the Maruk, has a long and bloody history of fulfilling this mission.
The Maruk clan of Ghaash’kala guards the central passages through the Labyrinth, the routes most often used by the Lords of Dust and their agents to reach the outside world. The sly and clever rakshasas often manage to slip past the vigilant eyes of the Maruk guards, but the sacred warriors of the binding flame are not without their resources. They can see through disguises used by the fiends, and when a fiend’s disguise is seen through, deadly battles can erupt in the depths of the canyons. The Maruk clan suffers terrible casualties as a result of these constant battles; the only reason the clan has survived to the present day is because of the steady infusion of new blood from elsewhere in Khorvaire. Orc barbarians from the Shadow Marches, human rangers from the Eldeen Reaches, and even human youths from the Carrion Tribes (see below) often hear the call of Kalok Shash, a divine beacon that draws them to the Maruk and other clans of the Ghaash’kala. However, the Maruk clan counts more humans and half-orcs among its members than any other Ghaash’kala clan and possesses lightly better equipment because of this greater outside immigration. The Maruk clan also has a higher percentage of paladins than the other three clans of ghost guardians. Members of the Maruk Ghaash’kala are somber and serious, prepared to die at any time in battle with the fiends of the Demon Wastes and other horrors spit up from the depths of Khyber.
–3,100 YK
The two-hundred-and-ten-foot-tall great pine Oalian, the future Great Druid of the Eldeen Reaches, is awakened to sentience through the primal efforts of the orcish Gatekeepers. Oalian will eventually become the leader of the Warden of the Woods druidic sect in the Reaches but will remain a font of primal wisdom for all of the druidic sects of Eberron.
–2,200 YK
The first dragonmarks appeared among the intelligent races of Khorvaire over three thousand years ago. For centuries, the dragons and other explorers of Eberron had known that Prophecy marks were formed by such seemingly random forces as coral growth, lava flows, and earthquakes. These were always the symbols of the Draconic Prophecy studied by the dragons of Argonessen. Yet beginning three thousand years ago, such symbols, called dragonmarks, began to appear on the bodies of various related lineages of elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, humans, and half-orcs. Like the earlier Prophecy marks, the dragonmarks represented primal forces that were tied to both the thirteen moons of Eberron and the planes of existence. As such, a dragonmarked heir was actually a pawn of the Prophecy: a tool that could be used to shape the future. The dragons could no longer ignore the “lesser races”—that they were intended to play a greater role in the Prophecy had now been made manifest by the will of the Progenitors.
Among the first dragonmarks to appear was the Mark of Hospitality among the nomadic halflings of the Talenta Plains, which eventually lead to the formation of House Ghallanda twelve hundred years later during the time of Karrn the Conqueror (see below). For those accustomed to the hard life of the plains, the powers of the mark were a real boon. The halflings knew nothing of the Draconic Prophecy and concluded instead that the dragonmarks were a divine blessing and that those so blessed were obliged to use this gift to help others in need. The majority of marked halflings chose to follow this call and came together to form a new tribe. A number of ancient Talenta legends involved blink dogs who came to the aid of stranded travelers and the tribe drew on this tradition when they adopted the name of Ghallanda, a word in the Halfling tongue that roughly translated into Common as “helpful hound who appears where needed the most.” For centuries after the development of the mark, halflings of the Ghallanda tribe roamed the Talenta Plains, offering magically conjured food and shelter to the needy. They sponsored glorious feasts for the heroes of the plains, standing apart from feuds and tribal conflicts. The helpful hounds were welcome in every camp and assisted Talentans of all the tribes.
At the same time as the Mark of Hospitality was emerging in the Talenta Plains, the Mark of Shadow and the Mark of Death appeared among the elves of Aerenal. It was at this time that the dragonmarked families of elves began to use the d’ prefix before their surnames (as in d’Phiarlan) to indicate their marked status. This convention would later be adopted by all of the dragonmarked houses of Khorvaire after the War of the Mark.
The dragons watched in awe and horror as the Prophecy began to unfold among the “lesser races.” To deal with the emergence of the dragonmarks, younger dragons petitioned the Conclave of Argonessen for the right to create an organization that would study and secretly interact with the peoples of Khorvaire to learn more about their role in the Prophecy. The Conclave gave its conditional approval for the creation of this organization of relatively young dragons—known as the Chamber—and for the creation of a territory where its members could operate that was formed from the Vast of Argonessen. This area was renamed the Tapestry. The Chamber became a highly influential—and almost completely secret—power group in the political affairs of Khorvaire over the next three millennia, seeking to manipulate the common races of Khorvaire to bring about certain outcomes of the Prophecy. But even the members of the Chamber sometimes pursued wildly different agendas.
The dragonmarked families would eventually form themselves into noble houses that were the most important elements in the magical economy of the continent of Khorvaire. Communications, transport, crafting, animal husbandry, security—the cornerstones of Eberron’s pseudo-medieval economy were all effectively owned by the dragonmarked houses. The wealth and influence of the present-day dragonmarked houses extend far beyond the power of the dragonmarks, however. Though the unique magical abilities of the Mark of Making might have given House Cannith smiths an edge over their mundane competitors in centuries past, the spell-like abilities of the dragonmarked were hardly novel in a society where divine clerics, artificers, magewrights and other spellcasters were far from rare. However, it was the carefully crafted histories and reputations of the dragonmarked houses in future centuries that was responsible for their commercial dominance in present-day Khorvaire. The skillful manipulation of magic and artifice allowed the houses to use their marked heirs as the keys by which even greater magic was controlled. House Sivis’ speaking stones, the lightning rail of House Orien, the airships of House Lyrandar and the creation forges of House Cannith all kept the dragonmarked houses at the center of Khorvaire’s economic, military and social development. As a result, the dragonmarked would come to enjoy a status in Khorvaire that“mundane” wizards and artificers could never match.
-2100 YK to -200 YK
Throughout their long history, the dragons of Argonessen built no cities for their own kind. However, over thirty centuries ago, a great non-dragon city called Io’vakas, the Gate of Knowledge, was founded by the Warders—a group of a dozen dragons dedicated to improving the lot of Argonessen’s humanoid “lesser races,” many of whom had been transplanted from their ancestral homes across Eberron by the dragons to act as their servants. With dragon magic and the labor of non-dragon subjects collected from across Eberron, the Warders built a walled enclave deep in the south of the region of Argonessen known as the Vast. Under the tutelage of their draconic lieges, the citizens of Io’vakas—the “Gate of Knowledge” in Draconic—became enlightened dragon worshipers with an advanced understanding of nature, science, and magic. Today, Io’vakas is a mass of shattered stone jutting up from ground made barren by dragon fire. But each morning as the sun rises above those ruins, it reflects off distant towers against the slopes of a bare peak to the west. This place is still very much alive; it is Io’lokar, the City of Knowledge—risen from the ashes of Io’vakas a thousand years ago.
The creation of Io’vakas thirty centuries ago was preceded by centuries of debate and anger among the dragons of Argonnessen. With the Chamber still in its infancy, most dragons opposed the Warders’ plans for empowering the lesser races. The idea of sharing even a small amount of draconic knowledge was anathema to many dragons, the fate of Xen’drik still sharp in their memories. In the end, though, the Warders prevailed. Io’vakas was built in the Vast with the tacit blessing of the Conclave and the Eyes of Chronepsis, and for almost two thousand years, the city thrived. Then the yuan-ti came from Sarlona, fleeing the strength of Riedra and the Inspired, and the doomsayers proved correct. When the serpent folk arrived in exile, the best among them were invited to Io’vakas. There, they joined the other non-dragons of the city in a bountiful life that included worship of the fifteen ascended spirits of the Sovereigns —a gift of faith to the non-dragons from their dragon masters. However, at least one sect of the Io’vakas yuan-ti sought more power than the Sovereigns could grant. In secret, this group claimed the direct worship of the Dragon Gods of Thir— and the deepest mysteries of draconic magic—for themselves. When this blasphemy was eventually discovered in -200 YK, the dragons who opposed the Io’vakas experiment demanded a swift and final response. Refusing to distinguish between those who transgressed and the bulk of the loyal yuan-ti, or even the Io’vakas citizenry as a whole, draconic might was unleashed with the tacit consent of the Conclave of Argonessen. Under a storm of lightning, frost, and fire, Io’vakas was leveled to the ground. A dozen or so yuan-ti escaped to the catacombs beneath the city; the rest of that serpentine race, including all the priests, were destroyed. From ruined Io’vakas, a pathetic few non-dragon survivors fled to the plains beneath a sky darkened by gathering rogue dragons, anxious to add these so-called scions of knowledge to their own herds of humanoid servants.
Then Arnaarlasha, a noble gold dragon great wyrm of the Warders, descended to the wasted plain. She and a dozen elder dragons loyal to her formed a protective cordon around a thousand desperate survivors of the city. On foot, they shepherded their charges across hostile territory to the slopes of Mount Erishnak, a granite peak in the center of Arnaarlasha’s own adjacent territory. To the assembled rogue wyrms and dominion lords of the Vast who had pounded Io’vakas and her inhabitants to rubble, Arnaarlasha declared the surviving non-dragons free subjects of her dominion in the Vast. Over the year that followed, high on the mountainside, Io’lokar, the City of Knowledge, was raised. Arnaarlasha never spoke of what drove her actions that day on the plains, nor did she ever do so. Four hundred years ago in 600 YK, the great wyrm’s death marked the city’s darkest hour and a turning point.
Within a day, Io’lokar was besieged by a coordinated attack of rogue dragons intent on claiming Arnaarlasha’s territory and razing the city. Beneath arcane defenses honed over six centuries, the city’s mages stood fast. Alongside the Warders and the Arnaaracaex, the stone giants who served as the city’s first line of defense, flights of wyvern riders called the Spear launched themselves from the city’s surrounding Moontowers, harrying rogue dragons in the air as they rained arcane fury against their reinforcements on the ground, while the city’s militia, the Shield, held Io’lokar’s walls. After four days, the rogue dragons retreated. Io’lokar stood fast, and its victory in the Battle of Arnaarlasha’s Fall is celebrated to this day.
Throughout the great battle, the draconic law enforcers known as the Eyes of Chronepsis and the draconic army called the Light of Siberys were conspicuous by their absence, a display of indifference they maintain to this day. As long as the Io’lokari are careful to stay within the boundaries of behavior proscribed for them when Io’vakas was new, the Conclave of Argonessen now seems content to leave the city be. However, both the Io’lokari and the Warders accept that the city exists at the Conclave’s whim. If any non-dragons seek the forbidden lore of dragonkind once again, or should any yuan-ti presence be again tolerated, no force of will or lesser magic will be enough to save them.
In the twelve hundred years since its founding, the City of Knowledge has grown from a mountainside fort (part of what is now the Freeward of the city) to its present form. Within its walls, scholars, crafters, and artisans from a dozen humanoid races live side by side in common cause and culture. Though the Warders long ago stepped back to let the Io’lokari run their own affairs, the city remains dedicated to allowing non-dragon culture to flourish on its own terms. Even after three thousand years, however, many of the city’s sages believe that the Warders had a deeper purpose in their creation of a non-dragon city within the dragon continent. In the same way that the dragons are said to shun the continent of Sarlona because they have seen that land’s destruction in the unfurling of the Draconic Prophecy, some suggest that the Prophecy predicts the eventual destruction of all non-dragon life on Eberron. Whether this destruction will come at the hands of the quori, some unknown magical or natural disaster, or through the actions of the lesser races themselves remains unknown.
Either way, Io’lokar (and Io’vakas before it) might have been created as a safe haven for humanity and the other mortal races—a place in which the scions of Sarlona, Xen’drik, and Khorvaire might live on. Today, the city is home to some of the finest crafters, artisans, and spellcasters in the world. However, commerce does not drive the art, craft, and magic of Io’lokar as it does in Khorvaire. Though the city has no effective monetary limit, coin has no value there. Gems have use as currency only if they appeal to an individual Io’lokari’s eye for aesthetic reasons. All Io’lokari work toward the continued survival of the city and the betterment of their own lives.
Like their draconic patrons, the Io’lokari are an insular society—many live their whole lives without ever setting foot outside the city’s walls. Those who travel typically do so for scholarly pursuits, journeying across Argonnessen and beyond. Io’lokar is hardly a prison, however, and powerful citizens often leave the city to take up positions as advisers or scholars with benevolent dragon lords or agents of the Chamber. Although the powerful people of Io’lokar would no doubt have little trouble each establishing themselves as lords in Khorvaire or Xen’drik, those lands have little to offer. A powerful Khorvarien might dream of wealth or power. A powerful Sarlonan might dream of ending the injustice of the Inspired’s rule. Io’lokari dream of peace, friendship, and the pursuit of ever greater knowledge. Their city is already the best place to achieve that.
Io’lokar’s population of 46,000 people has been effectively stable for nearly four hundred years, even with a steady number of immigrants. The city has high standards, and those unable to meet them usually have little interest in embracing its philosophies in the first place. Powerful individuals sometimes flee here from the holds of other dragon dominion lords in the Vast, typically infuriating their former masters. Often, refugees from the Vast come to Io’lokar in greater numbers than the city can handle. Once such folk are returned to health, it is thought that the Io’lokari quietly teleport them to the holds of more benevolent dragon lords, but this has never been confirmed.
Of all those who seek the City of Knowledge, only yuan-ti and half-dragons are denied entry. Although the Io’lokari know that examples of nobility exist even among the serpent folk and the dragon scions, the dragons’ dedication to destroying these creatures makes their presence in the city too great a risk. It is rumored that persecuted half-dragons often pass through Io’lokar on their way to better lives in exile in Khorvaire or Xen’drik, but the Io’lokari shun the half-dragon cultists and crazed dragon hunters common in Argonnessen.
No matter what their moral bent, the Io’lokari take a decidedly neutral approach to the affairs of Eberron. Like the Warders who first brought their ancestors here, the folk of Io’lokar is emphatically devoted to the Prophecy. However, unlike the dragons of the Chamber, the Io’lokari are content to watch history unfold on its own terms. A group of heroes seeking aid in Io’lokar to prevent some Khorvaire-wide catastrophe and another group hunting the epic magic with which to cause that catastrophe would likely both be met with indifference.
This is not to say that Io’lokar is inhabited solely by distant aesthetes or self-obsessed scholars. The folk of the city is a rich and varied lot, and Chamber sympathizers, sages skimming secrets from their colleges, and adventurers who have developed a taste for profit can all be found here. The appearance of a band of Khorvarien adventurers causing trouble might be all it takes to bring such people out of the shadows.
–2,000 YK
The great Sarlonan maritime explorer (and some say, pirate,) Lhazaar lead a migration of several thousand humans in a ragtag flotilla of ships across the Sea of Rage from Sarlona to the eastern shores of Khorvaire almost three thousand years ago, marking the start of a mass migration of Sarlonan humans to the new continent over the next few centuries. Lhazaar’s expedition reached the easternmost territories of Khorvaire that would later be named for her, the Lhazaar Principalities. Lhazaar and most of the other settlers who sailed with her were natives of the western Sarlonan nation of Rhiavhaar. Current archaeological findings indicate that Lhazaar’s expedition left from what is now a ruined, pre-Sundering Rhiavhaaran port city called White Water Harbor. The sailors of Rhiavhaar often took to slaving and piracy, and Rhiavhaarian ships—as well as Lhazaar herself—were feared on both sides of the Sea of Rage. Lhazaar’s flotilla was secretly accompanied by the black dragon Vyssilthar in her half-elven form, who left her mate behind in Sarlona because she had foreseen the momentous role Lhazaar’s expedition would play in the Draconic Prophecy and the future of the world.
The Lhazaar Principalities region draws its name from this Sarlonan explorer and pirate whose flotilla directly colonized the islands of Greentarn, Orgalos, and Cape Far. Despite her fame, Lhazaar was neither the first nor last pioneer to settle along the eastern coast of Khorvaire. Over two dozen large islands are in the Principalities, and a remarkable range of people have found their way to the eastern shore. Gnome explorers from their homeland of Zilargo claimed the Isle of Lorghalen long before Lhazaar made her crossing with the Sarlonan humans. Elf refugees from the Aereni civil war and the destruction of House Vol found solace in the icy solitude of Farlnen. Dwarves and orcs from the Ironroot Mountains migrated to the eastern shore, laying the foundations of Tantamar and Cliffscrape. And dozens of human expeditions followed in the wake of Lhazaar, with most being led by Sarlonan explorers, refugees, and fugitives from nations on that continent since destroyed and assimilated by the Riedran Empire and its Inspired lords. The Islanders came together over the centuries, forming cosmopolitan communities and common traditions, ultimately building the common culture of the Lhazaar Principalities.
Despite the blend of races and cultures that have come together to form the Principalities, Lhazaar’s influence can still be felt. It was Lhazaar who organized the first raider fleets, leading expeditions against Zil merchants and the ships of the dying Dhakaani Empire. Lhazaar granted her best captains the rank of praelas —a Sarlonan rank in Old Common translated as “prince” in the present-day Common tongue—and proclaimed herself to be the prince among princes. She established the few laws that are now universal throughout the realm that bears her name, notably the fact that the title of prince is not hereditary. By the edicts, a Lhazaar noble holds his post through the power of his fleet and ability to command. Should he slip on either count, a more capable leader can lay claim to his title and his lands. Over the centuries, a number of non-human principalities have adapted this custom to their own traditions; the gnomes of Lorghalen allow would-be princes to challenge a ruler to games of wit and tests of strategy, while the Farlnen elves expect a prince to possess arcane skill in addition to naval skill and maritime power.
Though many Khorvarien humans are unaware that Lhazaar’s expedition was the beginning of human settlement and society on Khorvaire, all know her name. Recently, a controversial theory has been gaining favor in academic circles, seeking to explain why the tale of Lhazaar’s expedition has always been an obscure part of Khorvarien history. Ellias Onsten, a little-known Korranberg Library researcher whose reputation faded even further after his death in 980 YK, was responsible for a revisionist look at Lhazaar’s expedition. Even prior to the end of the Last War, Onsten had studied the fragmentary histories of the sorcerer-kings of ancient Sarlona who had preceded the establishment of Riedra. To him, it had always seemed odd that the first waves of humans to reach Khorvaire had brought precious little in the way of magical knowledge with them. Onsten observed that migrant populations typically hold on to their former cultures and traditions at any cost—building a new culture on a rigid foundation of the customs and traditions of their ancestors. However, almost from the first, the early humans of Khorvaire seemed intent on turning their back on the traditions and history of their former homeland. This led Onsten to conjecture that the first humans to settle Khorvaire might well have been a population that Sarlona did not want.
Today, those Khorvariens who know Lhazaar’s story think of themselves as the descendants of brave explorers and seekers after glory. Onsten’s less attractive notion is that it is the descendants of Sarlonan untouchables, criminals, deserters, and slaves who instead peopled Khorvaire. The notion of a slave culture was of particular interest to the scholar (and of particular abhorrence to his critics), suggesting as it did a reason why the early Khorvariens were so quick to enslave the goblins of the fallen Dhakaan Empire. In Onsten’s view, the strong controlling the weak was the only world these human immigrants knew. Onsten’s hypothesis has recently gained ground among Khorvarien scholars. To them, a culture built entirely by people who have a vested interest in forgetting who they had once been might look very much like that of the Five Nations of Khorvaire today.
At the same time that Captain Lhazaar and the first humans arrived on Khorvaire’s shores, the Mark of Healing first appeared among the halfling tribes of the Talenta Plains who would form House Jorasco. Like its sibling House Ghallanda, House Jorasco was born on the Talenta Plains of eastern Khorvaire. House Jorasco was originally the Jorasco tribe, a collection of related halfling family lines. Eschewing the battle-hardened traditions of the Talenta nomads, Jorasco halflings earned their keep through skills at healing: from midwifery, to patching up wounded warriors, to helping ease the dying along their way to the Shadowfell. Their skill would be paid for by there covering individual’s family or tribe, an exchange of gifts and services that was the expected convention of Talenta culture.
The Sarlonan humans who came with Lhazaar slowly began to spread across the continent of Khorvaire, interacting at first with the few remnants of Dhakaani civilization that remained and sometimes overwhelming them, forcing the goblins to become slaves and servants in their new settlements. Central Khorvaire had once been the heart of the Dhakaan Empire for the same reason that it now appealed to the human immigrants—it possessed the mildest climate and the most fertile lands on the continent. These same qualities now drew thousands of human settlers over the next several centuries to the region, who founded dozens of new villages and towns. These human settlers spoke a common language, shared common customs and social mores and also shared a common religion brought from Sarlona—a faith in the Sovereign Host.
-1,975 YK
While a wave of human settlers from Sarlona eventually followed Lhazaar’s expedition to Khorvaire’s eastern shores, these brave people did not stop there. They soon pushed inland and explored their new continent’s northern and southern coasts seeking fertile land to settle and new kingdoms to establish. As a result, Malleon the Reaver, another Rhiavhaaran pirate from Sarlona, discovered the inlet of the Dagger River in southwestern Khorvaire twenty-five years after Lhazaar’s historic arrival. Malleon enslaved the goblins he discovered there hiding in the Dhakaani ruins of Duur’shaarat and built a fortress within those ruins on the bluff above the river.
Malleon, a superstitious man, hoped to make peace with whatever spirits remained in the ruins of the once-great Dhakaani city. He sealed off the deeper levels of the goblin-made mountain-monoliths that had been the home of the majority of the hobgoblins and he named the new human city Shaarat, deriving the name from the stories of Ja’shaarat told by his goblin slaves.
Over the next six hundred years, Shaarat grew into a powerful and wealthy city. Around-1,400 YK, Breggor, the first king of the nation of Wroat that would eventually become the Kingdom of Breland, demanded that Shaarat bow to his authority. Malleon’s descendants, who were the lords of the city, refused. A long siege followed, ending when King Breggor ordered his wizards to rain down magical destruction on Shaarat, destroying the city once more.
Breggor wanted the city on the Dagger River for his own and he did not allow the place to remain ruined for long. Within a decade of the siege of Shaarat, Breggor renamed the city Sharn. For the next eight hundred years, until the outbreak of the War of the Mark in -1,500 YK, Sharn’s towers began to rise along the bluffs of the river and the city flourished along with the rest of the Five Nations.
–1,800 YK
The Mark of Scribing appeared among the gnomes of Zilargo in southern Khorvaire almost twenty-eight hundred years ago. The society of Zilargo, the nation of gnomes established on Khorvaire millennia before humans arrived, had long revolved around noble houses: alliances of families wielding great social and political power. Sivis was an established gnome house even before the Mark of Scribing began to appear among its members. Though the dragonmark originally manifested in only a few of the bloodlines within the house, it later spread to all of the families who composed House Sivis. The gnomes of Zilargo, like the elves of Aerenal, were immigrants from Thelanis, a race touched by fey magic and driven by curiosity. The bards and sages of Sivis worked quickly to unlock their mark’s full potential. Recognizing the risk of being ostracized for the power they held, the Sivis dragonmarked also sought to make themselves useful to Zil society, even as they distanced themselves from the politics of those they served. In this, they laid the foundation for what would become the standard for the dragonmarked houses across Khorvaire: mercantile forces whose political neutrality increased their commercial power.
Within a few centuries of the Mark of Scribing’s appearance, House Sivis spread to other lands, where its heirs’ skills as translators and linguists proved invaluable to the young human nations of Khorvaire. Many Sivis gnomes claimed that their house was responsible for the refinement and spread of the Common tongue and alphabet from the Old Common of the earliest human migrants from Sarlona. As House Sivis spread beyond Zilargo, it made contact with the leaders of the newly created dragonmarked houses, helping to establish the common traditions shared by all of the houses to this day. As time passed, Sivis would play a critical role in discovering new dragonmarked bloodlines and helping the younger houses establish a foothold in the world. Of all the houses, Sivis has historically had the most interest in the Draconic Prophecy and the role of the dragonmarked houses within it. Ever since Alder d’Cannith’s assertion after the War of the Mark that twelve contemporary dragonmarks would one day be found in Eberron (see below), the sages of Sivis searched for the missing marks. Despite its influence, House Sivis never sought to dominate the other houses, instead of working to be a friend and ally to all of them. Of course, the gnomes were a subtle people who knew more about political scheming than the human race could ever dream and many dragonmarked heirs wondered if the vaunted neutrality of House Sivis was not a mask shrouding afar-reaching hidden agenda to become the puppet-masters of all Khorvaire.
–1,600 YK
The Mark of Sentinel first appeared among the humans of the region of Khorvaire that became the nation of Karrnath twenty-six hundred years ago. These people eventually coalesced into House Deneith several centuries before the War of the Mark, one of the largest and most influential of the dragonmarked houses because of their maintenance of their own standing force of dragonmarked mercenary troops. House Deneith was based in the city of Karrlakton in Karrnath and its roots were set deep in Karrnathi soil. The features and militaristic temperament of the Karrns could be found at all levels of House Deneith throughout its history and the heirs of Deneith were very proud of their Karrnathi heritage. House Deneith controlled the Blademarks Guild, the primary source of mercenaries on Khorvaire as well as the elite Defenders Guild whose members served as bodyguards for prominent people. Because of its control over a standing and powerful military force, House Deneith became one of the most powerful of the dragonmarked houses alongside House Cannith and House Sivis.
Matters were proceeding less well for the elven dragonmarked houses of Aerenal. The Mark of Death had first appeared among the elven families of the line of Vol, a group of elves involved in secret necromantic studies, which took to calling itself House Vol after the appearance of the mark. The Mark of Death provided its heirs with control over necromantic magic, from the lesser ability to keep dead bodies from decomposing all the way up to the ability to control and create undead. Since undead creatures were viewed as utter abominations by the Aereni elves because of their faith in the Undying Court, the elves of House Vol were viewed with suspicion at best and downright hostility by the other Aereni.
Over the centuries, the Sibling Kings of Aerenal had established their own security forces and relied on the Cairdal Blades, a small, elite force of lightly-armed warriors and assassins and the Deathguard, an equally formidable order of knights and priests of the Undying Court, to keep the peace. The rivalry between the Priests of Transition who served the Undying Court and the followers of Vol had been building for thousands of years, and the appearance of the Mark of Death had only made matters worse. House Vol used its abilities to serve as Aerenal’s undertakers and did not display the other uses imparted by the Mark of Death, though the house was riddled with elven necromancers who explored the full use of the inherent necromantic abilities of their mark in private.
Eventually, the leaders of House Vol secretly made contact with a flight of green dragons from Argonessen led by the great wyrm named the Emerald Claw. The dragons traveled to Aerenal and took up residence with the Vol nobles, magically disguising themselves in the humanoid form of elves. Historians still debate whether the dragons forged this alliance with the Vol elves as part of a broader peace initiative to end the Elf-Dragon Wars or because the dragons actually believed that they might be able to incorporate the powers of the dragonmarks into the dragon race through the birth of half-dragon children and so gain ascendancy over their brethren in Argonessen. Whatever their original intentions, in time the alliance between the green dragons and House Vol became so strong that the Emerald Claw actually fell deeply in love with and married the house’s elven matriarch, a powerful necromancer named Minara d’Vol, and produced an elven half-dragon child with her named Erandis d’Vol (named after Minara’s grandmother), whose draconic blood gave her dragonmark enhanced abilities. Erandis was raised in secret while both House Vol and the Emerald Claw (his Draconic name is now known only to his daughter) tried to secure a peaceful end to the conflict between the elves and the dragons of Argonessen.
But the birth of Erandis d’Vol, intended to forge a physical link between dragon and elf, was a secret that caused nothing but horror in both races. The secret of Erandis’ existence was made known to the Undying Court and the Conclave of Argonessen after being ferreted out from a traitorous member of House Vol by agents of the Cairdal Blades. The extent and purpose of this alliance between elf and dragon was never revealed to the public, but the Undying Court launched a full-scale assault on the line of Vol. The Sibling Kings declared that the blood of Vol was to be completely destroyed since even a drop could destroy all living things as the carrier of the Mark of Death. It was the first war between elves—and the first time that dragons and elves sided against a common foe, as the draconic forces of Argonnessen joined the Undying Court to destroy House Vol and its allies.
The leaders of both races made rare common cause and formed a temporary alliance to wipe House Vol from the face of Eberron, as they believed the mixing of their species to create elven half-dragons was an abomination. Despite unleashing every necromantic secret they had discovered upon the joint attack force of one thousand Valaes Tairn warriors, Aereni mages and dragons that carried out the massive assault on House Vol’s home region, the elven rebels had no chance of survival. The end for the heirs of the Mark of Death came when the Emerald Claw was defeated in battle with several of the dragons’ Eyes of Chronepsis who had been specially sent from Argonessen to lead the draconic assault force. This force was composed of militant dragons from Argonessen’s army, the Light of Siberys. The Eyes had been ordered by their superiors to kill or capture the Emerald Claw for his heresy, though some legends maintain that the great emerald-colored wyrm survived but withdrew from the world in shame over what his hubris had wrought. Realizing that House Vol was doomed, Minara d’Vol used the powers of her greater Mark of Death to transform the young half-dragon Erandis into an undead lich and managed to teleport her safely away from Aerenal, even as Erandis watched her mother die in a fiery blast from the mouth of the red dragon Avothirax. The great red wyrm was leading the draconic component of the joint assault force. Every single heir of the Mark of Death was killed in battle with the combined elven-dragon force or became undead like Erandis d’Vol, and the magic of dragonmarks no longer functioned for undead creatures. All of the surviving unmarked heirs of Vol and its elven allies were allowed to live but exiled from Aerenal to Khorvaire forever by the Sibling Kings. The thirteenth dragonmark, the Mark of Death, was effectively erased from the face of Eberron.
With House Vol and its potential threat to the purity of both elven and draconic bloodlines extinguished, the dragons returned to Argonessen. Within only a few centuries, the brief alliance between Aerenal and Argonessen was forgotten and the Elf-Dragon Wars resumed with their regular and destructive consistency, shattering the dream of the line of Vol and the Emerald Claw.
But Erandis d’Vol had escaped and in time made her way to the Lhazaar Principalities, the island kingdoms ruled by pirate kings that made up the extreme eastern edge of Khorvaire. Erandis, who now called herself simply Vol, the Lich Queen of the Dead, constructed her Illmarrow Castle among the ice-topped peaks of the Fingerbone Mountains of Farlnen, the largest island in the Lhazaar chain. At Illmarrow, Vol nursed her grievances against both the Aereni and the Argonessen dragons who had killed her parents and wiped her house from the face of the world, forcing her to take on her foul undead state. Vol, who was an immensely powerful wizard because of her special heritage, became determined to gain some measure of secular power that then could be used to unearth the necessary magical might required to destroy both the elves and the dragons of Eberron just as they had destroyed her family. Over the centuries, Vol gathered followers—both living and undead alike—to her side and began to explore the ancient necromantic arts and the religious faith of the lost Qabalrin elves of Xen’drik. Vol used her knowledge of the Qabalrin to establish a new religion known as the Blood of Vol, which was largely based on the ancient Qabalrin’s own spiritual beliefs concerning necromancy and the undead. Cultists loyal to Vol spread word of her religion throughout the Lhazaar islands, and a handful of people among the Principalities and across Khorvaire consider it their primary religion, though the faith eventually gained its most loyal following among the people of Karrnath (see below). Most followers of the faith knew nothing of Vol the lich or her history and plans for conquest and genocide. Instead, they worshiped the idea that blood was life and that undeath provided a better life beyond death than eternity in Dolurrh, as well as a path to divinity. Vol uses her highly placed loyalists to gather information and issue suggestions to the Lhazaar sea princes and their advisers. In many cases, the Lich Queen became the power behind the throne—both in the Principalities and in unexpected places on the mainland of Khorvaire.
The destruction of House Vol did not bode well for the other group of elven dragonmarked heirs who possessed the Mark of Shadow, House Phiarlan. The House of Shadow could trace its roots back to the Elven Uprising, the ancient war between the giants of Xen’drik and the ancestors of the Aereni elves described above. Many assume that this was a conflict between two monolithic entities, but neither elves nor giants were unified forces. Many different giant nations existed on Xen’drik, and there were dozens of tribes of elves, ranging from former slaves to guerrillas who had fought the titan overlords for millennia. Over the course of the uprising, some elves served as liaisons between the many different tribes. These travelers saw their role in war as being more spiritual than physical: their task was to uphold morale and maintain the alliances between the scattered elven soldiers. They called themselves phiarlans, or “spirit keepers” in Elven. These phiarlans learned the traditions and customs of all the elven sects, and a phiarlan bard could inspire warriors from any tribe. The phiarlans were not generals or military strategists, but their motivational work and the intelligence they carried from place to place was an invaluable part of the military effort.
In the end, pride, dragon fire, and twisted magic brought doom to Xen’drik. In the last days of the war against the giants, the visionary leader Aeren gathered elves from across the continent and arranged an exodus to search for a sanctuary across the water of the Thunder Sea. Many of the phiarlans joined her cause, and their diplomatic skills and knowledge of the scattered tribes played a crucial role in the exodus. The journey was a long one, but the songs of the past and tales of glory helped soothe the fears of the travelers. Eventually, the elves found a new home on the island-continent of Aerenal, and they slowly claimed the land as their own.
But in the time before the Undying Court, Aerenal was a very different realm from the ordered nation seen today. Most of the elves remained isolated in tribal communities, which ultimately evolved into the modern elven bloodlines. The phiarlans continued to serve as liaisons, working to strengthen the bonds between the bloodlines. Phiarlans would travel from court to court, performing the traditional arts of fallen Xen’drik and sharing news from other parts of the land. They also made an effort to look below the surface—to seek out rivalries and schemes that might threaten the peace and balance between the family lines. Typically a mediator would seek to settle disputes openly, but sometimes a phiarlan would quietly pass information to the parties that needed to know. This aspect of the phiarlan was well known, but accepted and even respected; a phiarlan might spy on your family’s court, but he would only use that information for the good of the growing nation. If you had nothing to hide, you had nothing to fear; conversely, anyone who refused hospitality to a phiarlan clearly had something to hide. The reputation of the phiarlans was their shield, and their remarkable skill with song, dance, and other arts was the coin with which they paid their hosts.
Death has always been an obsession of the Aereni. Millions of elves died in the fall of Xen’drik, and the elves swore that they would never lose their heroes again. But different lines followed different paths toward this goal. The Priests of Transition studied ways to preserve the spirit beyond the death of the body. The family line of Vol dabbled in blood magic and dark, necromantic arts. And the Tairnadal sought to become vessels for their fallen ancestors through perfection of the martial arts.
In time, the Priests of Transition won the support of the majority of the Aereni. The path of the undying relied on the veneration of life, while many saw the work of Vol as preying on the living to prolong the life of a few. Over the course of thousands of years, the Undying Court took form, and this served as an anchor that brought the family lines together. The first Aereni conflict against the dragons cemented this unity. Following this first battle, the councilors of the Undying Court selected the first of the Sibling Kings, and the present-day political and religious structure of Aerenal was formed.
With the Undying Court in place, laws were established to govern the land, and what had previously been a friendly alliance of elven family lines now became a true nation-state. In this era, the phiarlans moved from being pure mediators and news bearers to actual spies. Tensions rose as the nation coalesced, and not everyone supported the rule of the Sibling Kings; in particular, the line of Vol rejected the teachings of the Priests of Transition. The phiarlans continued to carry the ancient forms of art and entertainment from court to court. But now family lords and the Sibling Kings paid them to monitor enemies, searching for signs of dissidence, rebellion, or feuds. While they began to take gold for these services, the phiarlans still saw themselves as peacekeepers: They brought light to the shadows so justice could find its way. And then the dragonmarks appeared.
The phiarlans had always been drawn from three different family lines: Tialaen, Shol, and Elorrenthi. The Mark of Shadow first appeared on a member of the Elorrenthi, but these lines had long mixed their blood and members of Shol and Tialaen soon manifested the mark as well. Some say that the ascendant councilors of the Undying Court are among the only humanoids with the age or intellect required to study the Draconic Prophecy. But living sages had made some study of the Prophecy in the wake of the Elf-Dragon Wars, and while the elves did not know the significance of the marks, they recognized them as playing a role in the schemes of the dragons. The elves were the first to coin the phrase dragonmark, though few remember this. Fear followed the appearance of the marks. What was their purpose? What was the source of their power, and why had certain families been chosen? Given the long conflict between Aerenal and Argonnessen, anything tied to the Draconic Prophecy was viewed with suspicion. This prejudice strengthened the bond between the three phiarlan lines, but it also pushed them away from the rest of the Aereni. The Sibling Kings came to rely on the Cairdal Blades and the Deathguard where they might have once used the phiarlans. The rivalry between the Priests of the Transition and the followers of Vol had been building for thousands of years, and the appearance of the Mark of Death three thousand years ago simply made matters worse. The situation finally came to a head when the Cairdal Blades uncovered the alliance between House Vol and the cabal of green dragons led by the Emerald Claw. This conflict between House Vol and the Undying Court shook Aerenal to its core, but in the end, the line of Vol was exterminated. Some whispered that a single heir of the Mark of Death, the half-dragon Erandis d’Vol, escaped the destruction—but Lord Haensu of the Cairdal Blades falsely claimed to have faced Erandis in battle and vanquished her. Still, the line of Vol had many followers who had no actual blood ties to the family, and these elves were given the choice of abandoning their vile necromantic traditions or leaving Aerenal for exile in Khorvaire.
Many left, though not just the former followers of Vol numbered among them. Numerous Aereni believed that the shedding of elven blood by other elves had forever tainted the land, and those who bore the Mark of Shadow feared that they would be the next to suffer the fate of Vol as all dragonmarked heirs became suspect. A handful remained, believing that it was their duty to the kingdom; these elves found themselves largely absorbed into other family lines, and this mingling of blood causes the Mark of Shadows to occasionally appear in Aerenal. But most of the elves of the Tialaen, Shol, and Elorrenthi families fled to Khorvaire so that they could start anew. To mark their departure from elven society, they formally joined their lines into a new alliance: House Phiarlan. These exiles began to call themselves Khorvarien elves to distinguish themselves culturally from the Aereni even as they merged seamlessly into the multiracial society forming among the human-dominated Five Nations.
The Khorvarien elves had been uprooted from their home and their culture, and they intended to gain a secure position in this new land as quickly as possible. That meant amassing power. The people of Khorvaire had never seen anything to compare to the artistic skills and talents of the elves, and this sparked a renaissance in culture across the continent. Elven entertainers were welcomed into every village and city, and in the process, they gained knowledge and contacts. The elves of what was now called House Phiarlan had spent over ten thousand years serving as the eyes of the Undying Court, and they put these skills to good use. The Phiarlan were soon fully accepted by the other dragonmarked houses as an important member of the Twelve after the War of the Mark. And once they had sunk their roots deep into the land, the barons of the house contacted the other lords of the land, offering their services in exchange for gold or favors in the days to come.
–1,500 YK
The distinct human settlements that became the heart of the Five Nations appeared in central Khorvaire around twenty-five hundred years ago as the waves of Sarlonan humans who had first arrived with Lhaazar continued to slowly spread westwards, struggling with the native goblin tribes for the best portions of the land in search of new opportunities. These settlements included Thaliost (Aundair), Wroat (Breland), Metrol (Cyre), Korth (Karrnath), and Daskara (Thrane). These small city-states would form the core of the territories that would slowly evolve over the next few centuries into the human feudal kingdoms known as the Five Nations of Khorvaire. For five hundred years, these five human settlements grew and fought with the neighboring goblins—the remnants of the once-powerful Dhakaani Empire.
Despite the regional and political differences that ultimately made each of these states distinct, the people of these settlements all shared a common ancestry as the descendants of the human Sarlonan settlers who had come to Khorvaire with Lhazaar. This common ancestry meant that they also shared a language (the Common tongue), a religion (the Sovereign Host), a political system(feudal monarchy) and an economic structure (dominated by the growing monopolies of the dragonmarked houses over most commerce and trade). All of this commonality meant that the future Five Nations of Khorvaire were also ripe for unification under a single throne if a leader could arise capable of wielding together a strong enough military force to complete the conquest. It is at this time that it became another common custom among the human lands of Khorvaire for members of the hereditary nobility to adopt the ir’ prefix (as in ir’Wynarn) in front of their surnames to mark their status as landed aristocrats. This practice later extended to the Mror Holds and Zilargo, where some dwarf and gnome families were granted noble titles by the rulers of the Kingdom of Galifar.
At the same time as the foundations of the Five Nations were laid, the Mark of Making appeared among the humans of the region of Khorvaire that eventually became the nation of Cyre. These related families made their living as roving artisans and tinkers. Over time, these families organized themselves into the more formal structure of House Cannith before the War of the Mark, which rose to eventually dominate commerce and industry in Khorvaire from its ancestral forgehold of Whitehearth in the city of Eston in Cyre. Cannith would become the single most powerful of the dragonmarked houses because it became responsible for the manufacture of most of the weapons and other tools used by the peoples of present-day Khorvaire. For every advance made in magic over the next three thousand years, the odds were good that Cannith’s creation forges had a hand in it—from Everbright lanterns to the lightning rail, from the warforged to the secret experiments now lost deep within the wastes of the Mournland that was once Cyre.
It was also at this time that the Mark of Warding first appeared among the Clan Kundarak dwarves of the Mror Holds, who became the dragonmarked house of the same name sixteen hundred years later.
–1,000 YK
Karrn the Conqueror, a human warlord with enormous military skill and strong connections to the burgeoning mercenary business of House Deneith, seized control of the territory surrounding the city of Korth in northeastern Khorvaire along the shores of the great five-spoked sound that divided the central portion of the continent some two millennia ago. The new ruler modestly renamed this first human kingdom Karrnath and took the title of warlord rather thanking. Karrn had not been born into the nobility of Korth and had learned his skills with a blade and his strategic sense on the battlefield while serving as a mercenary for the early Blademark Guild. The Blademarks were employed by most of the human states against each other and against the goblin tribes. Karrn eventually formed his own mercenary company and went on to use this force of arms to seize control of Korth and it's allied lands while wielding his keen-edged greataxe. After assuming the throne, Karrn defeated the remaining Dhakaani goblin settlements south of Karrnath and then turned his attention to his human neighbors.
Karrn the Conqueror was a cruel and covetous man who believed that he was destined to rule over all of Khorvaire. He had built the most powerful human army up to this time, and after defeating the goblins he began a campaign to conquer the other four major human settlements. Karrn swept south, ostensibly to drive the remaining goblins into the wild regions, but actually invaded the region that would one day become the nation of Cyre. Caught by surprise, the humans of the area fell to the warlord of Karrnath. With two of the human nations now claimed as part of his growing empire, Karrn’s forces massed on the border of what would one day be called Thrane and demanded that nation’s immediate surrender. Before Karrn could claim another victory, the remaining three human nations joined forces to stop the Conqueror’s spread. What emerged from the carnage were five distinct but still nascent human nation-states mostly named after their capital cities (except for Karrn’s new kingdom)—Karrnath, Thaliost, Wroat, Metrol and Daskara—that spent the next thousand years alternately working together, competing for space and resources, and ultimately setting the stage for the great human civilization of Galifar to come.
Despite his strategic brilliance, Karrn had lacked the financial and material resources at this early point in the Five Nations’ history to build an army large enough to complete the conquest of the continent and his empire proved unsustainable after his death, with Daskara winning back its independence from Karrnath within months of the warlord’s end. Karrn was assassinated by a trusted friend who was covetous of his rule over Karrnath before he could launch yet another attempt at conquest. But his exploits—immortalized forever in his famous book, the Analects of War —would be remembered by a later generation of nobles in the Five Nations (particularly in Karrnath), who also dreamed of uniting all of human-settled Khorvaire beneath one crown.
Of course, while humans were the most numerous race on the continent and in many of the key positions of power, the other common intelligent races also participated in the rise of the Five Nations, especially as they became organized into the various dragonmarked houses. Thanks to the growing economic strength of these houses, all the common races eventually found a place in the developing human nations. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, half-elves, and half-orcs started out as representatives and employees of their respective dragonmarked houses, but eventually, members of each race settled down and made homes in the Five Nations. These neighborhoods began as house enclaves, becoming less attached to the dragonmarked houses as the common races’ populations in the human nations grew. If Karrn the Conqueror taught the people of the Five Nations anything, he taught them to establish national identities that transcended race. For a thousand years, the Five Nations expanded and developed unique political personalities and distinctive cultures and economies. Karrnath possessed a militaristic culture that honored preparation for battle over all other activities, Thaliost specialized in the research of arcane magic and magical items, Daskara’s people were as equally committed to the divine and the search for spiritual truth, Wroat was dedicated to trade and commerce and Metrol held itself up as the height of the human arts and culture on Khorvaire.
Karrnathi soldiers first explored the Talenta Plains at this time when Karrn the Conqueror sent his troops in all directions to carry out his plan for the conquest of the Five Nations. The Talenta halflings, who had never before contacted humans, were at first puzzled by the appearance of these large and unwieldy creatures, but the dragonmarked Ghallanda tribe had vowed to help all in need. Karrnathi soldiers returned to their capital of Korth with tales of little people using magical marks to conjure food and castles from the air. These tales intrigued the other dragonmarked families of this time and so House Cannith and House Sivis organized a joint expedition to the Talenta Plains that led them to discover both the Ghallanda and Jorasco tribes of dragonmarked heirs.
Despite their altruistic traditions, the elders of the Ghallanda were no fools. Even those who desired to leave the Plains and explore foreign lands did not intend to do so as servants to the humans. They agreed to work with the other dragonmarked houses, provided those houses would help them find a foothold in their lands. After much negotiating, House Ghallanda was born. It took some time for Ghallanda to spread its roots. Many humans considered the halflings to be cousins to the goblins, who were a largely oppressed and enslaved race at the time. The Ghallanda halflings had often served as tribal mediators in their homeland and they used their skill and charm at every level of society as they carved out a niche in the young Five Nations. During the War of the Mark, the Ghallanda halflings proved their worth by supplying and supporting the other dragonmarked houses’ military forces in the field. This effort gained them the support of the other houses—particularly the crucial votes of House Deneith and House Cannith—and eventually secured their place among the Twelve. Over the next thousand years, House Ghallanda spread across Khorvaire and became one of the most trusted of the dragonmarked houses—at least as long as the ale kept flowing.
When the Jorasco tribe became a dragonmarked house, its traditional role of exchanging its healing services for in-kind contributions from its fellow halfling tribes changed. In founding the house and establishing its headquarters in Karrnath, Jorasco soon found itself in debt to House Cannith and House Sivis—a debt that called for Jorasco’s services to be repaid in hard coinage, not in-kind. In time, the healers of Jorasco were operating on a set schedule of fees and asking for payment in advance. This initial fee schedule was designed to support the healers of Jorasco in return for the time they spent caring for others. As the house became more successful, however, payment became less about survival and more about profit. The Korth Edicts imposed after the foundation of the Kingdom of Galifar (see below) codified this situation in a way and forced the Jorasco to focus their fortunes in gold alone. Since that time, Jorasco’s mission of healing has always been balanced by the house’s passion for profit, a reality that often angers those most in need of Jorasco’s extraordinary healing gifts. Unlike their Ghallanda counterparts, House Jorasco would shift its focus from the tribal ways of life prevalent on the Talenta Plains to the cosmopolitan traditions of central Khorvaire. In the present age, Jorasco halflings have little or no connection to the culture of their nomadic ancestors and are firmly entrenched in the lifestyle of the human-dominated Five Nations.
At the same time that Karrn was initiating his war of conquest, the Mark of Storm appeared among the half-elves (Khoravar) of the human kingdom that became Thrane. Though the origins of what became House Lyrandar remain largely shrouded in myth, a few solid facts are known. Six hundred years before the appearance of the Mark of Storm, a significant number of Aereni elves had migrated to Khorvaire in the wake of the civil war in Aerenal that destroyed the dragonmarked House of Vol. Where elven and human settlements came into close proximity in central Khorvaire, intermarriage between the two races became common. However, when the earliest generations of half-elves were born, a good number of the Khorvarien elf settlers rejected them, leaving a population of half-breed children spread across the human lands. Over the following six hundred years, this population of half-elves only grew as they began to marry each other and the new race proved it could breed true.
According to the house’s own doctrine, the founders of Lyrandar were chosen by the gods of the Sovereign Host themselves. The half-elves Lyran and Selavash were the first to manifest the Mark of Storm, both claiming to have received their marks accompanied by visions of the Sovereign Lords Arawai and Kol Korran. The Sovereigns hailed the duo as the true children of Khorvaire since the half-elven race was one truly unique to that continent. The half-elves were a race made strong through their hybrid blood and would wield great power over both nature and commerce.
In the decades that followed, Lyran and Selavash traveled across Khorvaire, preaching their vision to others of their kind. Tales of miracles performed by the pair were common, but all that can be said for sure is that both possessed an almost supernatural ability to inspire others of their race. The charismatic duo encouraged half-elves to form their own separate communities and to recognize themselves as a unique race—the Khoravar, or “Children of Khorvaire” in Elven. Their followers began to call Selavash and Lyran the Firstborn, naming themselves the “children of Lyran,” or the Lyrandar. As proscribed marriage within the Khoravar community began to make the Lyrandar a line of related families, the Mark of Storm spread through those families with great speed. Those blessed by this magic soon formed themselves into House Lyrandar, operating a small fleet of swift ships, bound-elemental galleons and providing fair weather to farmers in need. Within centuries, the Lyrandar controlled almost all of the sea trade conducted by the Khorvarien nations and was also indispensable for the farmers of the Five Nations. Long after Selavash and Lyran had passed away, legends of the Firstborn continued to spread, including one of the most influential among other Khoravar that the Firstborn did not actually die but instead became immortal krakens and that this is a state that any Lyrandar heir can achieve. According to this tale, the Kraken lords remain in the depths of the sea, guiding Lyrandar heirs by way of dreams and visions as they help their descendants achieve true dominance over the waves. To this day, a good number of Lyrandar believe the spirits of their founders still guide the house and a Kraken surrounded by four lightning bolts is the great seal of House Lyrandar.
It is often assumed in the present that each dragonmarked house had a single founder or founders like Lyrandar: that some ancient Master Cannith was the first person to develop the Mark of Making, with House Cannith born from his children and their descendants. The truth is not so simple. Each dragonmark first appeared within multiple families, although the marks were bound to specific races and regions of Khorvaire and Aerenal. The Mark of Sentinel appeared among the humans who had settled along Khorvaire’s northern coast, while the Mark of Making was found among the human settlers in the Metrol region that would eventually become Cyre. It took generations for these first dragonmarked to realize the significance and power of their marks. During this time, aberrant dragonmarks were as common as those that would come to be seen as true marks, in part because there was as yet no taboo against mingling the bloodlines of two different dragonmarked families.
Each dragonmarked family would pass on stories of the exploits of its ancestors from this long ago time, although these were often contradictory. The Lyrriman family of gnomes of House Sivis claim that their forebears were the first to identify and unify the dragonmarked families, while members of the Vown family of House Cannith make similar claims. Seven dragonmarks were known by the time Karrn the Conqueror sought to bring all of Khorvaire under his rule, though the families that held them were often not yet fully unified into one house. The Sivis League, the Tinkers Guild of Cannith and the Phiarlans of Aerenal had all laid the groundwork for the birth of their future houses, but the Mark of Sentinel families of the north at this time were still divided. Some Sentinel heirs fought alongside Karrn the Conqueror during his time as a mercenary and warlord, while others were among his strongest foes.
Though Karrn ultimately failed in his attempt to conquer all of civilized Khorvaire, his wars helped to raise awareness of the dragonmarked as his soldiers traveled to distant lands. Over the next few centuries, the families began to communicate with one another, with the leaders of Houses Sivis and Cannith taking the greatest initiative. However, it would take a second war, the War of the Mark,to truly bring the dragonmarked families together and forge the foundation of the present-day system of twelve dragonmarked houses that control all of the non-agricultural trade and commerce of Khorvaire.
–900 YK
The Mark of Passage appeared among the humans of the nation that became Aundair nineteen centuries ago. The affected families built social links with each other over the centuries and eventually came together to create House Orien. House Orien began as a collection of merchants and teamsters, forming caravans that moved around pre-Galifar Aundair and beyond. When they manifested the Mark of Passage, they enhanced their skills with supernatural magical abilities that swiftly allowed them to dominate the roads of central Khorvaire. The dragonmarks were a celebrated phenomenon by this point and the extended Orien family established itself as a dragonmarked house like Cannith or Deneith in short order. In the days before the founding of the Kingdom of Galifar, few except the couriers and caravans of House Orien could cross the boundaries of nations and the holds of minor warlords in safety. With the help of the Mark of Passage and a knack for diplomacy, it became possible for Orien messengers to send information and packages from one end of Khorvaire to the other, with an excellent probability that the goods would arrive intact and on time. Orien caravans also carried human cargo and as workers and explorers moved across the continent, the house became one of the primary forces driving the commonality of culture that marks the Five Nations of Khorvaire so strikingly today.
-802 YK
In -802 YK, the quori who became the humanoid race known as the kalashtar first reached Sarlona, fleeing the plane of Dal Quor and the persecution of their fellow quori who were allied to the ruling collective consciousness of the Plane of Dreams, the foul il-Lashtavar , which meant “the Dreaming Dark” in the Quori tongue.
The plane of Dal Quor has a deep and fundamental link to Eberron, and the spirits of mortals travel to the Plane of Dreams when they sleep. Dal Quor is a mutable realm, and the fringes of the plane are shaped by the minds of the mortal dreamers. The center of the realm is shaped by an intelligent force more powerful than any mortal mind. This force, a form of collective consciousness, is vast and alien, and even its children—the quori—cannot communicate with it directly. The heart of Dal Quor is shaped in the image of this unseen dreamer, and its essence permeates all things. The quori call this force the Quor Tarai, “the Dream of the Age” in the Quori tongue. There are multiple quori castes, but all quori are aspects of the Quor Tarai. The quori are immortal as they are born from the fabric of their home plane itself. Quori are immortals alien to Eberron. Though immortal beings, the quori still feed—they consume the psychic energy of dreaming mortals. They do not reproduce, but they can be killed; the total population always remains the same, however. When a quori spirit is destroyed, a new spirit eventually appears fully formed in the heart of the realm. This spirit is generally of the same caste as the spirit that was slain, but it does not possess the memories or personality of its predecessor. So it would be impossible for a native of Eberron to kill all of the tsucora caste of quori; there will always be more. But a hero could at least eradicate a particularly hateful quori personality.
While the Quor Tarai is a force with the power to match that of any god, it is not immortal. Quori sages have reached the conclusion that the current age is the third incarnation of the Quor Tarai —and that, eventually, the current Quor Tarai will pass away. When this occurs, the Plane of Dreams will implode, only to explode outward with the birth of the next Quor Tarai. This cataclysmic event will destroy all of the quori. The sages speculate that the spiritual energy that is the essence of the quori will remain and that a new host of spirits will be formed from this force, but no one can say what those spirits will be like, and in any case, the personalities of the living quori will be destroyed.
If the Quor Tarai is the collective dream that shapes Dal Quor, then that dream is currently a nightmare. The center of Dal Quor is a realm of horrors, and the quori are terrifying monstrosities. At the very heart of Dal Quor is a pit of shadows, filled with impossible and terrifying visions. The sages say that this is the core of the current Quor Tarai. They call it il-Lashtavar in the Quori tongue, “the darkness that dreams,” or more commonly, “the Dreaming Dark.” When quori are slain, the newborn quori emerge from this opening in the heart of the plane. While quori cannot communicate directly with the darkness, many feel an intuitive bond to it and feel its desires. Chief among the quori is the spirit of the leading kalaraq caste known as the Devourer of Dreams, the only quori to have ventured into the maw of the Dark and returned. Most quori revere the Dreaming Dark as the force that has given them life, and they revere the Devourer of Dreams as the voice of the Dark.
While most of the quori were creatures of their age, a few felt that their very spirits were at odds with the Dark, that they did not belong to this age. One of these, a kalaraq quori named Taratai, proved the theory of the cataclysmic ages of Dal Quor. She determined not only that the Quor Tarai would eventually be reborn, but that it would be reborn in a vastly different form; that this was an age of darkness, and the next age would be a time of light and joy.
Taratai and her followers among the other quori castes immediately began to study the history of the plane to try to find a way to accelerate the change. This was their doom. The other quori had no desire for change and feared the thought of their world being transformed. The Devourer of Dreams declared that they would find a way to stop the turning of the age. The first step was to eliminate Taratai and her followers, with the hope that their essence would be reborn with more compliant personalities. This led to the events of the exodus and the birth of the race of kalashtar on Eberron. This conflict is the key to understanding both the quori and the kalashtar. The kalashtar want to reshape Dal Quor, and they believe that with their continued devotions to the religion they named the Path of Light they are doing so. The current residents of Dal Quor—the agents of the Dreaming Dark—are determined to maintain the current age and to break the cycle. It could be hundreds of thousands of years before the change is destined to occur, but the issue remains the same: the desire to find a path to an age of light set against the determination to maintain an age of darkness.
The kalashtar race has existed for only eighteen hundred years. It began in Dal Quor, where Taratai and her quori followers of light were being hunted down and exterminated by the agents of the Dreaming Dark. But there is more to Dal Quor than the realm of the Dreaming Dark. Every sentient creature on Eberron touches Dal Quor when it dreams, and every soul, every race, shapes its own piece of the fringes of Dal Quor. Fleeing from the Dreaming Dark, Taratai led her followers on an exodus through mortal dreams. While the quori could not travel physically between the planes as a result of the Quori-Giant War and the destruction of the world’s thirteenth moon, Taratai believed that she had found a way to cross through the subconscious and into mortal bodies on Eberron— provided that the proper portals could be found and that the hosts could be convinced to accept the travelers.
For a year Taratai and her quori traveled from dream to dream, passing through the dreams of dragons and beasts, never finding a place to rest. The Dreaming Dark’s agents were still baying at their heels, and between the Dark and the dangers of the dreams themselves, Taratai’s followers were slowly being destroyed. Finally, Taratai found the passage she needed in -802 YK—a subconscious conduit into the mind of a monk named Hazgaal from the mountainous nation of Adar on the southeastern tip of the continent of Sarlona. She knew that she could not maintain the connection for long, but she pleaded her case to Hazgaal, who was the master of the monastery—and to her surprise, he agreed to accept her band of fugitive spirits. Adar was the land of refuge, he said, and no creature would be turned away.
Sixty-seven Adaran men and women—including the Master Hazgaal himself—volunteered to share their bodies with the renegade quori spirits. In order to establish a permanent bond and truly escape from Dal Quor, it was necessary for the quori to merge fully—spiritually and mentally—with their human hosts, creating a synthesis of both personalities. These were the first of what Taratai called the kalashtar, a word in the Quori language that roughly translates as “wandering dreams.”It took time for the kalashtar to adapt to their new existence, but they were finally free from the Dreaming Dark.
In Hazgaal’s body as the kalashtar Haztaratai (though many stories still call her Taratai), Taratai continued her studies of the nature of Dal Quor and the Dream of the Age, and she developed the traditions that are the core of the kalashtar, and now Adaran, faith called the Path of Light—a series of practices and devotions that she believed would accelerate the turn of the age in Dal Quor.
There was only one uncertainty for the first generation of kalashtar: What would happen when one of the kalashtar died? Before they found the answer to this question, another mystery was revealed: that of birth. When the first kalashtar child was born, they found that the quori spirit that was tied to the parent now also had a bond to the child. The spirit, Harath, found that it took more of an effort to communicate with either of his human hosts, but that he was nonetheless aware of the experiences of each.
Over the next few centuries, the process continued. As more and more kalashtar were born, the quori spirits were spread thinly among them, and it became almost impossible for the spirit to communicate directly with the kalashtar. The memories and basic personality were still there, however; even if they could not communicate, the spirits were still alive and conscious, experiencing the world through the eyes of hundreds of descendants. Each generation of kalashtar was more physically distinctive than the last, and each lived longer than the one before; it was clear that the spiritual symbiosis between human and quori was having a minor physical effect on the quori’s human hosts as well. As they slowly adapted to better suit their spiritual companions, the kalashtar began to develop potent psionic abilities. The kalashtar did not have access to the full psionic power of their ancestors, but they still had astonishing abilities. They could fly, send messages from one mind to another, and transform their bodies into living weapons. It was a time of wonders.
It would not last. Three hundred years had passed in the world of Eberron, but three thousand years had passed for the agents of the Dreaming Dark in Dal Quor where time flowed more quickly. The quori had spent these millennia studying Taratai’s flight, and they had found a way to improve upon it. Traveling the fringes of the Plane of Dreams where it interacted with Eberron, an inter-dimensional nexus called the Dream space, the quori could whisper into the dreaming minds of the people of Sarlona, implanting ideas and suggestions into their heads.
After a century of this manipulation, the quori managed to throw the nations of Sarlona into the chaos known as the Sundering (see below) around -500 YK. In the process, the quori arranged for certain people to meet, for bloodlines to be formed, and ultimately to create human hosts known as the Chosen that the quori loyal to the Dreaming Dark could psionically possess and control—without any degree of cooperation from the subject. Another two centuries passed, and a wave of charismatic young lords appeared among the war-torn realms of Sarlona in -302 YK. This new generation of rulers claimed to be divinely inspired, and they had the supernatural psionic powers to prove it. After a few more centuries, this alliance had “restored peace” to the shattered land—failing to mention that they had been responsible for the horrific wars of the Sundering, two centuries before. They established the nation of Riedra, home to hundreds of thousands of humans who were fanatically devoted to their new overlords, known as the Inspired.
The young kalashtar paid little attention to the events in Riedra, concentrating on their Path of Light—until the first army of the Inspired laid siege to Kasshta Keep. The kalashtar had been lucky to find Adar; the natural defenses of the mountainous land were almost impregnable. The Inspired had the resources of an entire continent at their disposal, however, and were growing more powerful every day. More than a thousand years later, this stalemate still continues.
But it was a stalemate forged through sacrifice. An aged Haztaratai had been the first of the kalashtar to cross Adar. Followed by her entire lineage, she did so as an indication that her people should spread out over Adar, stopping at the monasteries of Mountainsoul and Korrandar, marking both as holy to many Adarans. In 151 Age of Taratai (-651 YK), Haztaratai passed from this world peacefully at Kasshta Keep. But the spirit of Taratai continued on, bound to Haztaratai’s lineage, and did so for over 550 years. Taratai’s scions were the most numerous among those kalashtar who had visions or dreams of the Shroud in the last stages of the Inspired’s takeover of most of Sarlona in the winter of 701 AT (-101 YK). The Shroud was a magical shield that would prevent the Inspired from magically teleporting into or scrying into Adar. Construction of the shroud resonators needed to create and maintain the Shroud started immediately, taking many months of work deep in Adar. When the Inspired finally laid siege to Kasshta Keep on the Adaran-Riedran border in mid-autumn of 702 AT (-100 YK), even the storms that naturally form when war comes to Adar could not stem the tide. The eldest of the Taratai lineage put out a call to his brethren, many of whom came to the front as quickly as they could. Together, the members of the Taratai line created a psionic metaconcert unlike the world has ever seen.
Accompanied by a small army of brave Adaran monks and mystics, the Taratai kalashtar met the Riedrans near the Kasshta River and on the headlands of Syrkarn. Even those who survived the clash remember only silvery light. In the end, the Riedran army was broken, and Lord Ulakhun, one of the greatest kalaraq Inspired generals in history, was slain in body and his quori soul bound and imprisoned by the Keepers of the Word, the greatest masters of Adaran magic and mysticism. A magical gem still rests in Kasshta Keep, among many others, containing that quori fiend’s spirit. The war continued into winter, with the Taratai line of kalashtar fighting in the forefront against the Inspired—they felt personally responsible for the arrival of the Inspired on Eberron. By midwinter, the Inspired still pushed into Adar, razing to the ground the original Malshashar Monastery on the border of Riedra. The Inspired were less committed to taking Kasshta Keep only because of their losses to the Adarans’ soul-binding magic, but their war machine ground on from the north. In the late winter of 703 AT (-99 YK), shroud resonators were placed in the remaining fortresses in Adar, and one was placed in a cavern provided by new psionic allies the kalashtar had convinced to aidAdar—the insectoid race of dromites of the underground realm of Zi’til’natek. In the last month of winter of that same year, the few remaining kalashtar members of Taratai’s line came to each of Adar’s monastery-citadels. All the kalashtar disappeared in silver light as the shroud resonators began to function. The line of Taratai was no more, but their sacrifice meant that Adar’s borders became nearly impossible to cross by the troops of Riedra from that day forward
The kalashtar were born in the mountains of Adar. Descended from the quori, a race of immortal and alien spirits, kalashtar have endless patience and a firm conviction that their traditions will someday usher in a golden age for all living beings of Eberron. They do not want to change in any way; they know what needs to be done to fight the Dreaming Dark, and they will continue until they succeed or have been destroyed. This attitude is reflected in the rigid monastic lifestyle of the Adarans, which has remained unchanged and uncontested for more than a thousand years. Almost all of the kalashtar live in one of the eight temple-fortresses that dot the mountainsides. What time is not spent in meditation or prayer is devoted to the defense of the realm, holding the natural battlements of Adar against the endless onslaught of the Inspired of Riedra. The Adaran kalashtar have no time for cultural change and no reason to believe that change is necessary.
Things are different on the continent of Khorvaire. The kalashtar of Khorvaire come from a variety of backgrounds. Some migrated to Khorvaire before the Inspired arrived on Sarlona, blending quietly into the humans of the Five Nations before the Kingdom of Galifar united them. Others have been sent by kalashtar elders over the course of the last few centuries. Some came to study Khorvaire, while others were sent away to ensure that kalashtar society could not be eliminated in a single blow by the Inspired. The kalashtar of Khorvaire have more interaction with other cultures and do not have to deal with the constant distraction of war.
As a result, the kalashtar of Khorvaire are generally more optimistic and innovative than their Adaran counterparts, and they enjoy experimenting with new things. The kalashtar population of Khorvaire is split between a number of racial enclaves in the major cities of the continent. This pattern has largely been driven by the war with the Dreaming Dark. The Inspired might be able to arrange for the destruction of a small rural community, but they would never get away with smuggling an army into Sharn. By placing themselves in the capitals of Khorvaire, the kalashtar are also able to monitor the activities of the Inspired ambassadors: They already have strong roots in the cities the Inspired are now working to infiltrate. They cluster together not because they are uncomfortable around members of other races, but because they need the sense of safety in numbers,and it is easier to spot the actions of the Dreaming Dark in a closed system. Within a kalashtar community, the most influential form of social group is the lineage—the quori spirit that a kalashtar is bound to. This is not the same as a family group. Kalashtar inherit the spiritual bond from their parents, but the bond is always based on gender; a son always takes the father’s bond, while a daughter inherits from the mother. Thus, each lineage is composed of a single gender. All members of a particular lineage think of the others as brothers or sisters, even if they are actually distant cousins at best. Most kalashtar live with other members of their line.
There is no tradition of marriage among the kalashtar. Members of different lines socialize together and procreate (with the children being adopted and raised communally by the others of their lineage), but it is difficult for a kalashtar to imagine living with a member of another line for the rest of his life. In Khorvaire many old traditions are being questioned, however. The kalashtar respect age and wisdom, and most kalashtar communities are governed by a council with a representative from each lineage that has a presence in the community. Conflicts between lines are uncommon; the greater threat of the Dreaming Dark has always held the kalashtar together through periods of possible unrest. The method used to select a representative varies by lineage; in general, the leader is simply the person who has the overall confidence of his line, and it will change if that confidence is ever lost. The different communities are linked by lines of psionic communication; most communities have one psion who can open a telepathic link with other kalashatar communities, which is used to check in with the guiding councils of the other cities in Khorvaire and the elders of Adar.
As a whole, mental discipline is part of kalashtar life, and this is reflected by their well-ordered society. Kalashtar generally act in the interests of what they consider to be the greater good, and mercy, kindness, and hospitality are important virtues within their society. Well-mannered visitors are always welcome, though a shadow watcher keeps a sharp eye on outsiders until he is certain they are not agents of the Dreaming Dark. Most other people find kalashtar communities to be austere; the disciplined kalashtar have few vices, and most donate any extra income to the community in the interests of defense, so they have few luxuries. But they are capable of enjoying life without much in the way of material goods, taking pleasure from the company of their kin. Some humans find this admirable, while others simply find it to be disturbing—because humans cannot understand the mental bond between kalashtar of the same line, the level of cooperation and lack of conflict between them often seems unnatural.
The kalashtar continue their devotion to the Path of Light, but many believe that the Inspired have come up with a counter to Taratai’s plans to overthrow the Dark. The Inspired have created a stagnant society in Riedra, and they are spreading their enormous hanbalani monoliths across the land in the hope of eventually realigning Eberron and the plane of Dal Quor so that the quori may once again physically enter the world. Many kalashtar believe that the Inspired plan to spread these monoliths across the entire world—and that if enough of them are built, it will finally secure the safety of the Dreaming Dark as all mortals dream exactly what the quori want them to.
The kalashtar do not intend to let that happen.
–800 YK
The Mark of Handling first appeared among humans in the Eldeen Reaches who eventually formed House Vadalis some eighteen hundred years ago. House Vadalis was the dragonmarked house that created and ran the Handlers Guild, which was devoted to breeding, selling, caring for and training normal and magebred animals throughout Khorvaire. Originating in the Eldeen Reaches, Vadalis was the only human dragonmarked house to keep its center of operations outside the Five Nations. Its members were content to serve the small cities, towns and rural areas largely ignored by the other, more cosmopolitan, houses.
While the dragonmarked houses consist of extended families—separate bloodlines that all trace back to a common ancestry, the sheer size of most houses means that few house members can claim any sort of relationship outside their immediate family unit within the house. House Vadalis is the exception to this rule. While the other houses have done their best to increase their size and influence on Khorvaire, Vadalis has taken almost the opposite stance. Every Vadalis heir over the age of 10 can recite his family lineage on both of his parents’ sides for several generations. This is not a matter of rote memorization for the purpose of pride, but information that sees daily use. Through this knowledge, any heirs of House Vadalis can determine the exact blood relationship to one another within an hour’s time. This, in turn, creates a strong bond between them. It is one thing to work alongside someone who shares your name, but another to aid your grandmother’s sister’s great-grandson—at least to a Vadalis heir. House Vadalis is a family first and a business second. Commercial deals that might threaten the larger family unit are ignored, while plans with less profit that accommodate the house’s structure are taken up instead. The other houses are routinely astounded by the Vadalis ways, often ridiculing the house’s limited wealth and influence, but Vadalis simply takes a different view of the world. In their minds, no one of their blood is a stranger and no amount of money can take the place of kin.
–500 YK
Fifteen hundred years ago, the Mark of Detection first appeared among the half-elves (Khoravar) of the land that became Breland and they proceeded to organize themselves into House Medani. Of the twelve dragonmarked houses, House Medani had the lowest profile—and that is how the house’s heirs preferred it. The half-elves of Medani were the masters of the Warning Guild, through which they offered their services as bodyguards, inquisitives, and sentries to clients across Khorvaire. Medani was the youngest of the dragonmarked houses to originate within the Five Nations, with the Mark of Detection appearing only shortly before the War of the Mark began. The Medani families banded together in pre-Galifar Breland prior to the outbreak of that conflict but had few aspirations beyond being left alone. Only in the aftermath of the War of the Mark did Medani’s elders bow to the pressure of the other houses and take their place among the Twelve. Despite often strained relations with the other dragonmarked houses, Medani’s collective voice carries weight. The house’s warnings are ignored at the listener’s peril, but Medani’s iconoclastic nature makes it sometimes difficult to work with.
Though any number of organizations might claim a lock on the truth, House Medani can back that claim. Those who possess Medani’s dragonmark can sense arcane and divine power, the taint of poison, unseen intruders or magical observation from a world away. All Medani heirs train in the use of logic, perception, and techniques for assembling fragments of evidence into a recognizable whole. As allies, they are formidable; as enemies, even more so. The Medani alliance existed before Galifar came into being; a collection of families based in the former Medani provinces of what would one day become Breland. Already accustomed into blending into human or elven society, the half-elves of the Medani concealed their dragonmarks when they first appeared. A close-knit society, they were content to use the Mark of Detection quietly, building a reputation as bodyguards and scouts while attempting to avoid the growing conflicts of the other dragonmarked. House Cannith discovered Medani partway through the War of the Mark. At first, it was thought that the Mark of Detection might simply be a widely prevalent aberrant dragonmark, but that conjecture was soon discarded. Cannith finally tracked down the elders of the Medani families and convinced them (some say threatened) to take their place alongside the other dragonmarked houses. Even in the present time, distaste for authority runs strong in House Medani, giving rise to an aloofness that many dragonmarked heirs ascribe to the house. Medani is forthright in its views on inter-house politics and is an active participant in the Twelve, but representatives of the other houses sometimes claim that House Medani works against their interests as often as it supports them.
Aberrant dragonmarks appeared to have come into existence at the same time as the true dragonmarks some two thousand years before the present time. The first records of the aberrant marks referred only to individuals as opposed to their appearance among families. Historians now believe that aberrant dragonmarks appeared sporadically and were only rarely passed on to their bearers’ children. Fragmentary histories of this period paint a grim picture of the “children of Khyber,” attributing all manner of depravity to the bearers of aberrant marks. Of course, these tales also attribute astonishing powers to the early aberrants, such as the story of one who burned down an entire thorp with a wave of his hand because he “desired warmth.” Whether these stories have any grain of truth or not, tales of aberrant activity grew more frequent over the centuries. Approximately fifteen hundred years ago, the appearance of aberrants reached an apex—and the bearers of the true marks decided that it was time to act.
The War of the Mark transformed the dragonmarked houses into their present-day forms and solidified their places within Khorvarien society as the most important players in the Five Nations’ economies. It also solidified the early influences of House Cannith and House Deneith among the other dragonmarked houses, since both were able to bring significant military force to bear in the struggle. Dragonmarked house lore presents the war as a bold struggle to eliminate the deadly threat posed by those bearing aberrant dragonmarks. A close study of historical documents from this period suggests that aberrant dragonmarks began to appear in far greater numbers in the century just prior to the outbreak of the war and that many of these marks carried great destructive power. However, revisionist scholars now claim that the so-called war was largely fought to secure the power and prominence of the true dragonmarked bloodlines and to eliminate a possible source of economic competition for their services. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as it often proves to be in such cases.
Whatever the true reason for the outbreak of the conflict, its first few years were very one-sided. Spread across the Five Nations, the aberrants were hunted down and exterminated one-by-one by their better-organized and well-disciplined foes in the dragonmarked houses. The war might have ended then if not for the aberrant-marked nobleman Lord Halas Tarkanan. Tarkanan organized the surviving aberrants into an army in the third year of the dragonmarked houses’ inquisition against his people. Under Lord Tarkanan’s leadership, the aberrants proved a surprisingly resilient enemy against the far more numerous and better-equipped troops (most of them House Deneith mercenaries) of the dragonmarked houses.
Halas Tarkanan, a powerful aberrant heir known as “The Earthshaker,” possessed an aberrant mark which gave him great control over natural forces, but his strategic brilliance often played a greater role in winning victories in battle. His consort, an enigmatic woman known only as the Lady of the Plague, was considered an even greater threat. Though she is commonly depicted as a monster in folktales, many scholars have observed that she seems only to have used her aberrant mark’s powers over disease when forced to and might even have despised her gift—facts carefully omitted from the official histories of the War of the Mark prepared by the gnome scribes of House Sivis.
Tarkanan, a brilliant tactician, used his military skills and the sheer magical power provided by the aberrant marks to turn the tide of battle against the dragonmarked armies. Tarkanan and his queen, the Lady of the Plague, seized control of Sharn, the great mercantile city growing above the bluffs of the Dagger River, and turned it into the primary bastion of the aberrant army. In the end, though Lord Tarkanan’s efforts extended the conflict for a further four years against the might of the dragonmarked houses, he simply lacked the necessary numbers to secure a victory. Tarkanan and his aberrant forces were slowly beaten back to the walls of Sharn by the armies of the dragonmarked. Tarkanan himself was trapped in the final siege of the city of Sharn alongside his consort, where the last of his troops had taken refuge from the massing forces of pre-Galifar Breland, House Deneith and House Cannith. When it became clear during the dragonmarked houses’ siege of the city that he and his followers were doomed, Lord Tarkanan, the Lady of the Plague and his other lieutenants unleashed the full horrific magic of their aberrant dragonmarks—arcane power sufficient to destroy the entire city. Earthquakes shattered its towers, rivers of lava flowed up from the fiery lake deep beneath the city, hordes of vermin rose from the depths and terrible plagues ravaged those who ventured too close to the ruins. Many think even in the present day that the Lady of the Plague’s death-curse still lingers in the depths of Sharn, the source of creatures such as the feral spirit, the roach thrall, and the rancid beetle swarm. Those members of the besieging armies who escaped the flames of Sharn’s fall were devoured by swarms of vermin or stricken down by deadly plagues. The War of the Mark was over—but Sharn had suffered greatly and was abandoned once more.
Despite the horrific conclusion of the War of the Mark, the dragonmarked houses had eliminated the only true potential rivals to their economic hold over Khorvaire and they began to assume the forms they hold at the present time. At the end of the conflict, Lord Hadran d’Cannith suggested that the dragonmarked houses formally cement their alliance by creating an arcane citadel—a center for research and the study of both arcane magic and the potential powers of the dragonmarked heirs. Though there were only ten dragonmarked houses in existence at this time, the architect and artificer Alder d’Cannith convinced the committee to follow through on Hadran Cannith’s idea to name the new institute the Twelve, based on his belief that there were twelve true dragonmarks in addition to the lost Mark of Death. Alder was a brilliant man whose works had played a critical role in the War of the Mark and the members of the committee humored him— though few expected the remaining two marks to eventually appear (the remaining two marks, Warding and Finding, were not “discovered” until after the formation of the Kingdom of Galifar). The new institute was constructed as a ziggurat that mystically floated above the city of Korth in Karrnath.
At the beginning of its existence, the Twelve played a critical role in shaping the dragonmarked houses’ development, but as the houses grew in power and spread across the continent, its influence diminished. Nonetheless, the Twelve remains one of the premier centers for arcane magical research in Khorvaire. By combining the skills and mystical talents of the different dragonmarks, the wizards and artificers of the Twelve have created remarkable items. It took the combined skills of House Orien, House Cannith and House Kundarak to create the magical safe-deposit vaults that allow House Kundarak’s customers to deposit goods at one bank and withdraw them across the continent. Airships, the lightning rail, even the warforged—these marvels could not have come into being without the spirit of cooperation and discovery found among the Twelve.
Over fifteen hundred years ago, the quori began the conquest of the twelve human kingdoms of Sarlona by using their psionic powers to make contact with the rulers of the Sarlonan nations. The quori slowly influenced them while their minds were present in the Dreamspace every night into beginning a series of devastating wars that made the continent ripe for eventual consolidation into the Empire of Riedra under the control of the Inspired, who were actually quori-possessed humans. This process was known as the Sundering of Sarlona.
By the time Sarlona’s history was finally codified by the human inhabitants who had long called the continent their original homeland after the Rhiavhaaran pirate Lhazaar had led her expedition to Khorvaire, the continent’s dozens of human city-states had become a land of twelve kingdoms, remaining so through long years of interstate conflict. The provinces of Riedra today bear the names of eight of those original kingdoms—Dor Maleer, Rhiavhaar, Khalesh, Nulakesh, Borunan, Ohr Kaluun, Pyrine, and Corvagura. Where the steppes of Syrkarn spread at present, the four kingdoms that once stood there exist now only as names—Mae Khree, Sunyagir, Khunan, and Lamecha. In northern and eastern Sarlona, the largest powers were the Empire of Nulakesh and the Kingdom of Corvagura, each the conqueror of a dozen smaller Sarlonan states and city-states whose names are lost to history. For much of the Twelve Kingdoms’ early history, Nulakesh was the dominant military force in central Sarlona, building its power through a reliance on a fanatical and disciplined military caste. Though the sorcerer-kings of Corvagura were renowned, it was secretive Ohr Kaluun and majestic Khunan where Sarlona’s arcane might truly rose and ultimately fell. Rhiavhaar on the west coast cemented its rule using a different kind of power, controlling the Sea of Rage largely by means of piracy and slaving.
Having stitched itself together from smaller territories, the inland state of Khalesh continued to practice conquest of a different sort. As a nation dedicated to the worship of the spirits of the couatl, another race once native to Sarlona, Khalesh had a long history of crusades and attempts at conversion (some benevolent, others less so) among its neighbor states. Likewise, Pyrine sought to spread its faith—a pantheon of nine deities known as the Sovereign Host—throughout Sarlona.
In the steppes and savannah of what is now the land of Syrkarn, the kingdoms of Mae Khree, Sunyagir, and Lamecha effectively orbited the more powerful state of Khunan, carving out specific niches for themselves (agriculture for Lamecha, the breeding and training of Sarlona’s finest horses for Mae Khree, and the mining of iron, mithril, gems and other precious minerals for Sunyagir). At the same time, each nation made a point of maintaining armies and magical might just powerful enough to keep Khunan and the larger northern kingdoms from getting any expansionist ideas.
The most unusual kingdom of Sarlona’s lost past remains the oddest of the modern Empire of Riedra. Borunan was and remains the homeland of “civilized” ogres and the powerful oni (mistakenly sometimes called ogre magi) lords who once ruled over this nation of giantkin. Beyond the twelve kingdoms of old Sarlona lay the frigid Tashana wastes and the mountainous land of Adar. As the wars of the Sarlonan city-states had evolved into the wars of Sarlonan kingdoms, these areas remained largely unaffected. As for the mountainous realm of Adar, it had long been known as a place of refuge, a sanctuary for individuals or entire villages of refugees fleeing from the wars of the other Sarlonan kingdoms. Eighteen hundred years ago, on a date immortalized as 1 Age of Taratai (see above), Adar received its strangest visitors—quori spirits fleeing from the Plane of Dreams, seeking human hosts. A group of Adaran monks agreed to provide shelter for these spirits, and the kalashtar race was born from this mystical union.
The arrival of the kalashtar was the beginning of the end for the Twelve Kingdoms of Sarlona. War raged in Dal Quor, and the enemies of the kalashtar were determined to bring the struggle to Eberron. The quori that served il-Lashtavar (“the Dreaming Dark”) were not prepared to sacrifice their power and individuality as the kalashtar spirits had, and this prevented them from directly taking human hosts. But they could still manipulate mortals through dreams. They could give a paranoid king nightmares of a treasonous conspiracy against him, leading him to persecute his own people. They could send a charismatic general visions of justice, urging him to rise up against a tyrannical monarch. They could send two people dreams of love, ultimately forming a relationship and a child more biologically suited to quori telepathic manipulation. Starting 1,500 years ago, the quori did all this and more. Exploiting human fears, prejudices, and greed, the quori threw the kingdoms of Sarlona into chaos. For two hundred years, beginning around -500 YK, Sarlona was shaken by war. As one nation became stable, another would attack it, driven by racial prejudice or religious zealotry, or a new rebel group would arise within its borders. Terrible arcane magic was unleashed. No human nation had the power to rival the arcane might of the lost giant civilizations of Xen’drik, but the wizards of Khunan and the sorcerers of Corvagura were mighty in their own right, and the dark lords of Ohr Kaluun were masters of both divine and arcane magic. This period of Sarlonan history was known as the Sundering, and kingdoms were shattered in its wake.
The quori used their psionic power and control over the Dreamspace to set the Sundering in motion, and so they used their power to end it. After two hundred years of careful psionic manipulation, they managed to breed human bloodlines across Sarlona whose members were especially genetically and mentally vulnerable to the quori’s telepathic manipulation and psychic possession—the predecessors of the Riedran caste known today as the Chosen. The quori began a campaign of dreams across the continent, promising salvation to those who would follow their newly forged religion known as the “Path of Inspiration.”
Soon, the first Inspired appeared, as the quori were able to possess the minds of the Chosen. These psychically-possessed humans had great charisma and impressive psionic powers, and to the people of the war-torn lands of Sarlona, they were literally the answer to their prayers. The Inspired brought an end to many of the feuds and wars, frequently by uniting former enemies against carefully selected scapegoats. The yuan-ti of Syrkarn, the shulassakar of Khalesh, the oni of Borunan, and the priests and mages of Ohr Kaluun were all targeted in this way. Many were destroyed or enslaved; others fled to Adar, Xen’drik, or Khorvaire. Throughout these struggles, the Inspired extolled the virtues of unity. Within two centuries, the old traditions and cultures of the twelve kingdoms of Sarlona had been swept away. Where once twelve proud states had stood, now only one remained: the Empire of Riedra.
At the same time as the kingdoms of Sarlona were falling under the sway of the Inspired, the second wave of Sarlonan human migrants to reach Khorvaire sailed east across the Barren Sea under well-known circumstances, in contrast to Lhazaar’s expedition fifteen hundred years before. These Sarlonans were refugees fleeing the Sundering of the Sarlonan nations and the rise of the Inspired’s new empire in Riedra. The Riedrans had pushed east into the forests of the Empire of Nulakesh, then beyond, leading many eastern Sarlonans from the Twelve Kingdoms to flee the Inspired’s vision of a new utopia. These Sarlonan men and women landed on Khorvaire’s western shores, spreading into the Shadow Marches where they remain today and where they eventually interbred with the native orc clans to create the first half-orcs.
Unfortunately, a few expeditions of these Sarlonan refugees lost their way and were shipwrecked on the northwestern shores of Khorvaire in the region known as the Demon Wastes. In time, these poor people would become twisted by the fiendish taint of the Wastes and become the second of the two groups of barbarians who called the Demon Wastes home: the Carrion Tribes.While the noble clans of orcs known as the Ghaash’kala wandered the canyons of the area of the Wastes called the Labyrinth, the Carrion Tribes preferred to make their homes as nomadic hunter-gatherers on the rocky plains west of the Labyrinth’s deep badlands.
The members of the Carrion Tribes were the more numerous of the two barbarian hordes of the Wastes and consisted of vicious human savages who worshiped the malevolent fiendish spirits that haunted the region. Over the centuries a handful of different tribes emerged, each following a different fiendish Overlord who lay imprisoned in the depths of Khyber beneath the Wastes. No matter which demon lord they pledged allegiance to, the Carrions were bloodthirsty nomads known to slaughter any strangers they came across—including the members of other Carrion Tribes. While they worshiped the ancient fiends, the Carrion Tribes also feared the ancient rakshasa ruins scattered across the plains of the Demon Wastes and so avoided such locations. Occasionally a tribe attempted to break through to the Eldeen Reaches, which resulted in a brutal conflict with the Ghaash’kala clans in the Labyrinth. The Carrion Tribes were extremely technologically and culturally primitive and generally used hide armor and weapons made of stone or wood, though a few possessed poorly-maintained equipment scavenged from their victims. The Carrions practiced ritual scarring and mutilation; each tribe used distinctive techniques designed to give its warriors the features of fiends.The Carrion Tribes worshiped the fiendish powers that dwelled within the Wastes—the imprisoned rakshasa Overlords, the night hags, and the lesser fiends and dark spirits that dwelled in the shadows. Barbarians were seen as sacred warriors who underwent a form of sacred demonic possession when they raged in battle. Each tribe has slightly different beliefs, depending upon the nature of the fiend they revered. But all the tribes sought to water the Wastes with the blood of their enemies— something that the rakshasas of Ashtakala found most entertaining.
Two of the most infamous of the later Carrion Tribes were the Moon Reavers and the Plaguebearers. While most of the Carrion Tribes worshiped the rakshasa Overlords and their lesser rakshasa and demonic servants, the Moon Reavers revered the night hags of the Wastes—the foul female fey who spread fear by the dark of the moon across the world. This tribe was made up mostly of barbarians, but because it specialized in terror tactics and guerrilla warfare, a number of rogues were also among the membership. Whenever possible, the Moon Reavers prefer to stalk isolated prey using methods designed to frighten them severely prior to making a kill. They draw this fear out for as long as possible, reveling in the terror of their victims. Clan members make masks and other decorations using the bones and skin of their victims. They file their teeth and let their nails grow long in emulation of the dark fey they so admire.
The Plaguebearers revered an imprisoned fiendish force of filth and pestilence. Its members sought to turn the power of their lord against their enemies. Plaguebearers smeared their weapons with dung to infect their foes with vile fevers brought on by the filth. The members of the tribe were typically covered with weeping open sores and angry welts from various infections, but they were remarkably resistant to the effects of diseases and poisons and never were seriously impaired by their myriad afflictions.
-302 YK
The truth behind the founding of Riedra was far from the benevolent fairy tale of a new renaissance of peace and stability brought forth from a period of terrible conflict that the Inspired presented to their followers. Following the severing of all planar connections between Dal Quor and Eberron at the end of the Quori-Giant War, the race of quori who had launched that first invasion of the world were wiped out by the turn of Dal Quor’s collective guiding spirit, the Quor Tarai. The Quor Tarai was transformed into il-Lashtavar, the Dreaming Dark, a malignant collective consciousness that spawned a new race of malevolent quori who were as determined as their predecessors to prevent their race from becoming extinct when the Quor Tarai turned once more. To this end, they decided that if they could control the dreams of every inhabitant of Eberron, they could prevent il-Lashtavar from ever turning. The quori’s leaders, the members of their kalaraq caste, decided that they would take control of Eberron one continent at a time, beginning with the human homeland of Sarlona. Sarlona was chosen because the dimensional fabric of the world was unusually weak across its surface and made communication between Eberron and Dal Quor through the Dreamspace easier there.
Since they could no longer physically enter the world, over the centuries the quori used their psionic gifts to breed a race of humans known as the Chosen who possessed the perfect set of genetic and psychic characteristics to serve as human hosts whose minds could be possessed by individual quori, in effect allowing the inhabitants of the Plane of Dreams to operate physically on Eberron once more. When the Chosen were possessed, they became known as the Inspired, and they began to unite all the kingdoms of Sarlona, ravaged and exhausted by the quori-instigated Sundering, into the utopian empire of Riedra. The Riedrans of every race were taught to believe in the Path of Inspiration, an artificial religion that presented the Inspired as divinely-appointed guardians and rulers over a racially caste-based society in which one’s future place in society after reincarnation was determined by absolute acceptance of one’s place in the present. Riedra became a land of perfect order and harmony rigorously enforced every night by psionic broadcasts from massive, psychically-active silver monoliths known as the hanbalani which were erected across the breadth of Sarlona and were actually intended to both realign Dal Quor with the world so that the quori could physically enter it and to maintain the absolute symmetry of the mortal races’ dreams so that the Dreaming Dark could never be overthrown like its predecessors among the Quor Tarai.
Following the establishment of the Inspired’s rule, the Riedrans acted collectively rather than as individuals. Their new society knew no poverty, crime, greed or any of the other imperfections found in the other human cultures across Eberron, and the borders of the empire were closed so that foreigners from Khorvaire or anywhere else from outside Riedra could not interact with the nation’s people save at two Riedran port cities on the east and west coasts of Sarlona, Dar Ulatesh and Dar Jin, respectively. Unfortunately, the Riedrans also enjoyed no freedom. They were nothing more than the human pawns of their Inspired lords, who actively sought to keep the Riedran population perfectly controlled and mentally anesthetized to decrease the chances of the Dreaming Dark’s rule of Dal Quor being overturned.
Over the course of the next thousand years, the Inspired tightened their grip on the people of Riedra, slowly expunging the remaining traces of the old Sarlonan cultures. The Inspired moved slowly, making changes with each generation until no one alive remembered a time when life was any different. Through psychology, indoctrination, and the control of dreams, the quori shaped a nation of slaves whose people were grateful for their chains, believing that the Inspired were their only shield against the horrors of the past and the outside world. During this time, several major events helped shape modern Sarlona.
The first of these was the Syrkarn Migration: In one of the opening strokes of the Sundering, the kingdom of Khunan attempted to annex its neighbor Lamecha, ostensibly for its southern ports that stayed largely free of Rhiavhaarian piracy. Mae Khree, Sunyagir, and Lamecha allied against Khunan. As a result, a devastating period of arcane conflict known as the Magewars ensued. When it was done, the great kingdom of Khunan lay broken. In the aftermath, its survivors fled for the three victorious states or the nations beyond. Over the course of decades, tribes of ogres, half-giants, and worse crossed the Andnemun Desert, eager to occupy the ruins of this once-great land. In their midst, however, new creatures arose that had never before been seen on Sarlonan soil—the yuan-ti. More cunning than the ogres and half-giants, they quickly established dominance over the remnants of Khunan.
Fragments of lost lore collected by Adar’s Keepers of the Word suggest that the sages of Old Sarlona believed the yuan-ti to be magical mutants, descendants of the Khunani transformed into serpent-like aberrations that quickly rechristened their new kingdom “Syrkarn.” This was partially true, as the yuan-ti were actually humans who had once been the ancient servants of the couatls of Sarlona but had been corrupted, unlike their shulassakar counterparts. When the Inspired arrived on Sarlona, the whispered alliances they forged among the warring human states were quickly turned against the yuan-ti. Syrkarn was invaded, and the yuan-ti were hunted to the point of extinction. However, even in the aftermath of victory, the human populations of Lamecha, Sunyagir, and MaeKhree were suddenly ordered out of their ancestral lands for resettlement elsewhere.
In the Riedran year 90 Unity (-212 YK), thousands of people were moved from Syrkarn and resettled in Khalesh, Dor Maleer, and Corvagura. To this day, no official rationale for the exodus has been given by the Inspired. However, those who have attempted to piece together and connect the oral histories of the yuan-ti with the vague lore of the Age of Demons have suggested that in the course of eliminating the threat of the intelligent and powerfully psychic yuan-ti of Syrkarn, the Inspired discovered a dark power behind the serpentfolk’s creation. A fiendish Overlord was trapped beneath the yuan-ti ruins of Syrkarn. Abel Varmanc, patron and leader of the Library of Korranberg expedition that bore his name, has gained recent notice for his attempts to collect the fragmentary lore of Old Sarlona from Riedran merchants engaged in trade with Khorvaire.
In academic papers and private debate, Varmanc has suggested that some lingering power from the Age of Demons was not only involved in the creation of the yuan-ti through the corruption of the couatl’s human servants but also in the destruction of Khunan that preceded that genesis. In his view, oral traditions describing the legendary devastation of Khunan bear an eerie similarity to the events in Thrane of 299 YK, when the rising of a terrible force bound since the Age of Demons gave birth to the Church of the Silver Flame through the sacrifice of a couatl and the paladin Tira Miron(see below). Whether the destruction of Khunan was the result of a bound fiend Overlord’s stirrings or of potent magic wielded by the Khunani in their attempts to confine it once more, “Syrkarn” is the name the legends give to that dark presence.
The next major event in Riedran history was the Madness of Yaruun: By 177 Unity (-125YK), Riedra was firmly established, but memories of the old kingdoms remained, giving rise to lingering cultural tensions. Then a series of devastating psychic attacks took place along the Riedran borders of Adar. The worst of these occurred in the city of Yaruun, where every inhabitant was left insane. The Inspired revealed that these attacks were the work of an unexpected enemy: the kalashtar, mortals who had given their bodies over to altavars (evil spirits). Now the Riedrans had a focus for their anger and thus was set in motion the long struggle between Riedra and Adar that continues to this day. After a few costly battles (particularly at the Battle of Kasshta Keep in -100 YK, see above), the Inspired chose to place Adar under continuous siege instead of trying to invade and conquer it.
The Madness of Yaruun was the defining moment of the relationship between Riedra and the kalashtar, and it indelibly etched the image of the monstrous kalashtar into the Riedran psyche. Of course, the reason behind the attacks remains a mystery. The kalashtar have no records of them. It is very likely that the Madness was staged by the Dreaming Dark to turn the people of Riedra against the kalashtar. After a thousand years, the truth might never be known.
After Riedra was firmly established as a nation, the Inspired entered into a trading relationship with the Akiak dwarves of northern Sarlona. When the Akiak clans split from their Dorann dwarven forebears hundreds of years before, they initially settled in the passes and valleys of the Paqaa Mountains. Leaving behind the destructive clan violence of their forebears, they made great leaps in metallurgy and alchemy. The psychically-gifted duergar, in particular, developed advanced techniques for working with the abundant metals and deep crystal found in the mountains of their adopted home. Previous to the rise of the Inspired, the Akiak were in great demand as technicians in all of the Old Sarlonan kingdoms, and some clans migrated even farther south, approaching Adar’s borders. During this period, the Akiak began building dalnans, small structures of crystal and steel designed to harness the psychic energy of an Akiak community. Many of these early monoliths can still be found throughout northern Sarlona.
When the Inspired came to power, they hired many of the Akiak—who functioned nearly like a crafters’ guild in this period—and the clan’s coffers swelled with Riedran gold. The Akiak and the Inspired worked together to build the first of the massive hanbalani (monoliths), with the dwarves supplying the basic alchemical and metallurgical building blocks. The monoliths were an integral part of the quori’s plan for Riedra and the whole of Eberron. Although the basic framework was derived from the Akiak design, the Inspired also brought quori insights on the nature of psionics to the work, ensuring that the monoliths could be used in ways the Akiak never considered. Once the Inspired had appropriated the knowledge they needed to build hanbalani on their own, they turned on the Akiak in a massively coordinated betrayal. In 536 Unity (1 Lharvion, 234 YK), Riedran forces launched a surprise attack on the Akiak in what the dwarves remembered as the Night of Razor Dreams. Planned assassinations, both physical and psychic, wiped out nearly all the Akiak leaders, engineers, and skilled technicians in the hanbalani construction facilities. Meanwhile, the shifter barbarians of the Harmonious Shield’s Taaskan Legion—already garrisoned near many of the clan homes as“protection”—swarmed the Akiak’s villages and towns in the Paqaa Mountains, killing or enslaving all who remained. Only a fraction of the once-great Akiak nation survived this horrifying betrayal, fleeing to the northern foothills of the Paqaa Mountains and the free lands of the southern Tundra. The Night of Razor Dreams burns in the heart of every Akiak, a terrible price paid for an unwise and greedy collaboration with the Inspired lords of Riedra. Over the next several centuries, the Akiak dwarves rebuilt their culture around a central precept—vengeance against Riedra for the terrible crimes the Inspired had committed against them.
In 876 Unity (574 YK), the Inspired became interested in acquiring dragonshards, crysteel-grade crystal, and other resources that were plentiful on the shattered continent of Xen’drik. A century later, in 674 YK, the Inspired established the fortress-city of Dar Qat on the western coast of that land, sparking regular contact between the people of Khorvaire and the Riedrans. The Inspired had long spurned the overtures of the Kingdom of Galifar for trade and commerce, but now the two nations’ ships met on the open seas. Initially, the Riedrans were prey for the pirates of Khorvaire and Xen’drik who plied the Sea of Thunder. But as Galifar established its own presence on Xen’drik, the city of Stormreach became a neutral ground for the two empires, and open trade began.
The people of Khorvaire know very little about Sarlona. For the last thousand years, the Inspired have kept the continent behind a veil of secrecy, turning ships away and even psychically shielding it from scrying eyes. Today, that situation has begun to change.
Following the outbreak of the Last War, the Inspired sent emissaries directly to the royal courts of Khorvaire. They offered many forms of aid, from food to medicine; one of the more tragic results of this trade has been the spread of the addictive Sarlonan narcotic called dreamlily through the criminal underworld of Khorvaire. Meanwhile, smugglers made contact with Riedra’s own black marketeers, the Dream Merchants, and founded secret havens on the islands of Ohr Kaluun and the coast of the Tashana Tundra. Riedran textiles, Tashanan art, and many other Sarlonan exports are slowly finding their way into the great cities of Khorvaire, and charming Inspired ambassadors are fast becoming fixtures among the upper classes of the Five Nations. In 998 YK, the Inspired took the unprecedented step of unveiling a foreign quarter in their great eastern port of Dar Jin, allowing Khorvarien ambassadors from the Five Nations, the dragonmarked houses and others who had legitimate business with Riedra to come to this bastion city.
The hallmark of all Riedrans is devotion, unswerving dedication to their state, companions, and work. Each Riedran’s path has been laid out by those wiser than he is, and it is a road that leads to eternal salvation. His challenge is to resist the temptations the cunning altavars place in his way—temptations such as the words of foreigners, who could attempt to turn him against the glorious Inspired.
At its heart, Riedra is a massive cult. Its people have been brainwashed from birth; the hanbalani monoliths shape the dreams and beliefs of Riedran children before they can even speak. Anyone who would challenge the Inspired swiftly vanishes to the Thousand Eyes, so most people never hear opposing views. Even if they did, they would fear such words as deadly blasphemy. The people of Riedra truly love the Inspired, and they love their lives. Most Riedrans do not want to be rescued from the Inspired; they consider the “freedom” so treasured by foreigners to be a weakness that threatens the evolution of the soul. A Riedran farmer has a roof over his head, food on the table, and clothes on his back. He might not be able to live wherever he wants, choose his food, or even pick the color of his clothes, but in his eyes, he has a good life, secure and stable. He does not need luxuries in this world. Such things are certainly tempting, but it is by resisting that temptation that he ensures his advancement in the next life.
Riedrans place a high value on honesty and community; the Path of Inspiration teaches, “A liar sells his soul with every word.” A follower of the Path strives to be honest and to be a good neighbor, contributing to both his village and his nation. A Riedran always helps out a fellow citizen unless that person advocates a course of action that goes against the Path of Inspiration.
Work means everything to Riedrans. Each vocation and task is a lesson to be mastered for forward movement on the Path. Riedrans work long hours without complaint, and they often regret having to leave work to participate in community activities. This devotion often means that Riedrans are surprisingly skilled in their professions, but they lack versatility and creativity.
Time away from work is usually spent with other members of the community. Riedrans dine together in central halls, participate in group athletic exercises, and gather in the evenings for storytelling and religious instruction. They are allowed a brief amount of unstructured time each day, ostensibly for meditation on the day’s events; however, many prefer to remain among friends even during this private time. Privacy is not something that Riedrans treasure—solitude can be a painful and disturbing experience for a Riedran.
Young Riedrans are raised communally. They are often transported to new villages as soon as they are old enough to travel, to prevent birth parents from forming an unhealthy bond with the child. Youths live in segregated dormitories, tended by dedicated caregivers. As they grow, children serve as apprentices to other members of the community, allowing the caregivers and a priest of the Path of Inspiration to determine their aptitudes. A youth is usually set on his path in his thirteenth year and moves into an adult dormitory at this time. At eighteen, a Riedran is “paired” with another. This is the Riedran equivalent of marriage, and the pair occupies the same dormitory. Those in control of this process, the pathfinders, prefer for people to be pleased with their bonding, and thus they accept mutual requests. Still, pairing is done for the sake of producing children, and if two people are genetically incompatible, their pairing is not allowed. Riedrans are expected to be monogamous, and sex outside of a pairing relationship is punished.
Riedrans seek to control strong emotions and focus their energy in positive ways. Religious ceremonies provide an outlet for emotion under the guidance of the local priest. In these rituals, people are instructed to unleash a particular emotion in response to a recent event. For example, if another villager has succumbed to “spiritual corruption” and been taken by the Thousand Eyes, the people gather to feel pity, sorrow, and hope for their lost companion. If news comes of kalashtar treachery, people gather to unleash anger and hate. Between these periods of release, people are expected to keep their emotions under control or to speak with a priest if they cannot. Of course, what none know is that this psychic projection of collective emotions actually feeds the quori, whose“food” is the emotions produced by intelligent minds.
Xenophobia is common in Riedra. Violent and chaotic, foreigners practice dark magic, eat the flesh of beasts, and destroy their nations in the name of “freedom.” Foreigners should be pitied. Lacking the direction of the Inspired, they have no protection against the altavars. It is only natural that they fall prey to lust, greed, and other lower emotions. Nonetheless, they are like wild animals and cannot be trusted. A Riedran must always be wary when dealing with foreigners, never allowing them to sway him from his path.
Riedra’s provinces are divided into territories known as spheres. A sphere is a circular region centered on a fortress-city called a bastion, which is ruled by a particular Inspired lord. The territory takes its name from its Inspired master—the city of Durat Tal is in the Sphere of Surasek, in the province of Corvagura, for instance. All Inspired hold the title of Lord or Lady; the ultimate leader of a bastion carries the title of Eidolon.
The typical bastion is a metropolis, and many of them rival the city of Sharn, Khorvaire’s biggest urban area, in population. They are centers of industrial production, supporting the bulk of a sphere’s troops. Surrounding a bastion is a network of villages, spread out in as orderly a manner as possible, taking environmental factors and resources into account. A sphere contains dozens of villages. Most villages focus on agriculture and simple industry. Although some variance in styles and customs exists from province to province, villages within a sphere are virtually identical. No thorps, hamlets, or towns can be found—when a population rises to a sufficient level, the Inspired draw off the excess to create a new village. Riedran villages are functional and ascetic in design. The community is centered around a building that serves as a dining hall and a public assembly, where people gather to listen to the sermons of the local priest or to hear stories of the glorious deeds of the Inspired.
Villagers live in communal dormitories, with separate houses for children. While Riedra has no lightning rail, villages and spheres are linked by a comprehensive network of maintained roads. The Inspired also have a secret system of psionic teleportation circles at their disposal, passing through the central hub of Durat Tal. The number of gates is limited. The Inspired can teleport cargo directly from Dar Jin to Durat Tal, but getting those goods to, say, the village of Keloor requires a caravan.
All important decisions concerning the fate of Riedra are made in Dal Quor. The bastion lords do not gather in Riedra to debate policy, because such councils are held in Dal Quor. To a foreigner, it seems that the bastion lords and generals of the Harmonious Shield operate unilaterally; however, they all act in perfect accord with the plans formulated in the Plane of Dreams. While the destiny of Riedra is set in dreams, a complex bureaucracy manages its daily affairs. The Inspired hold the top tier. Powerful Inspired noble rule each bastion city, and Inspired serve as generals, ambassadors, inquisitors, and high ministers. Although mighty Inspired are rare, lesser Inspired serve throughout society, in positions where trust or psychic power are required. Beholden to the Inspired, the human Chosen dedicate themselves to being worthy of inhabitation by an il-altas. They manage the bulk of the administration of Riedra, also serving as officers in its military. Chosen overseers govern most villages. The most important positions are granted to Chosen who served as Inspired before their quori spirits moved on to other hosts; after decades of possession, the minds of these individuals have been molded by the quori, and they are fully trusted by the overlords. Whether Inspired, Chosen, or commoner, Riedrans serve in one of four groups: the Unity, the Thousand Eyes, the Harmonious Shield, or the Dreaming Dark.
The Unity forms the foundation of Riedra, and the majority of the population serves one of its branches, which deal with agriculture, industry, construction, medical care, crisis management, education and foreign trade—indeed, all the common productive activities of any society. There is no money in Riedran society—everyone works for the common good, receiving food, shelter, and clothing as well as any other necessary items of daily life from the communal stores of his home city or village. While each branch of the Unity has its own ministers, the seven arms work together in the service of the nation and answer to the local bastion lords. This arrangement separates the Unity from the Thousand Eyes and Harmonious Shield, which follow different chains of command. All branch high ministers are psions.
The Harmonious Shield is the army that stands between Riedra and the countless dangers of the outside world. Whether they are fighting the treacherous kalashtar on the Adaran front, combating dromite forays, hunting Akiak dwarves in Dor Maleer, or battling skulks in the ruins of Ohr Kaluun, the soldiers of the Harmonious Shield serve the Inspired on the field of battle. The Harmonious Shield maintains garrisons in the bastion cities, and it has independent fortresses spread along the borders and in areas deemed to be especially dangerous. The largest fortresses are called kintams. They are connected by permanent psionic teleportation circles, which allow swift transportation of troops and supplies. Kintams can be the size of cities, and new recruits are usually dispatched to a kintam to learn their trade. Years of psychic indoctrination teach soldiers that honorable death in battle is the surest path to advancement in the next life. Discipline within the ranks is strict, and looting and rapine are serious offenses. A soldier needs nothing that is not given to him by the Inspired. The same training burns mercy and empathy from the minds of Riedran soldiers, so a servant of the Shield feels nothing for the people he kills. This conditioning does not always take hold, however, and a few recruits find themselves horrified by the brutal actions they must perform.
Such a warrior must either suppress these emotions or find a way to escape before his “weakness” is discovered. Riedran warriors believe they are fighting for a holy cause against monsters and those corrupted by evil spirits. Fiercely devoted to their nation, they are no more evil than the typical Brelish conscript or knight of Thrane.
To a Riedran, no one in his right mind turns against the Inspired. Those who do are clearly victims of influence by the terrible altavars. Someone has to help these victims if possible, or do whatever is necessary to ensure that they do not threaten other innocent souls by spreading their spiritual contagion. Those tasks fall to the Riedran secret police—the Thousand Eyes. The Thousand Eyes administers justice across Riedra and maintains the reclamation centers. Public agents of the Thousand Eyes—easily identified by their green uniforms and golden badges of office—can be found throughout any bastion, and people take comfort in knowing that these guardians are watching. Far more dangerous, however, are the secret members of the Eyes. Nearly anyone in Riedra could be an agent. Furthermore, even when no one is around, psychic scrying allows the agents of the Eyes to watch the wrongdoing of criminals. Agents of the Thousand Eyes are typically human, Chosen, or changelings. The bulk are simply observers, skilled in noticing the details of their environment and anyone in it. More capable agents tend to be rogues, specializing in observation and stealth. Chosen and especially honored changelings are trained in the psychic arts. When force is required, the Thousand Eyes calls on bastion guards or the Harmonious Shield’s Sleeping Sword, but it also maintains a covert corps of psychically-empowered assassins.
The bastion city of Dul Zeer is the Thousand Eyes’ greatest stronghold. Here, a network of psychic scrying crystals allows agents to scry across the continent, and psionic teleportation circles let them dispatch forces to any bastion or kintam. Thousand Eyes agents present in a Riedran village can be alerted through dreams. In an emergency, Inspired psions can teleport Riedran forces to the site of a disturbance. The current Riedran high minister of the Thousand Eyes is the kalaraq-caste Inspired Lady Sharadhuna.
Officially, the mysterious organization called the Dreaming Dark holds no power in Riedra. Most Riedrans have never heard of it, and they would reject any attempt to link it to the Inspired as kalashtar propaganda. Even if presented with clear evidence of an Inspired working for the Dreaming Dark, a Riedran would likely dismiss it as a tragic case in which one of the noble Chosen fell prey to possession by an altavar, not an indication of duplicity on the part of his saintly Inspired. Nonetheless, the Dreaming Dark wields great influence in Riedra. All quori bow to the ultimate authority of the Dreaming Dark and all Inspired provide the agents of the Dark with whatever they require. Many quori that serve the Dreaming Dark have Chosen vessels spread throughout the Unity, the Thousand Eyes, and the Harmonious Shield. This influence allows agents of the Dreaming Dark to take direct action within Riedra whenever it suits their needs.
The Dreaming Dark has little need to act within Riedra, however, since that empire is already completely under the control of the Inspired and any dissent can be put down by the conventional Riedran military and the Thousand Eyes. The Dark’s true agenda is to destroy the kalashtar and to spread the influence of the Inspired across Eberron. Agents of the Dark can be found in Sarlona, Khorvaire, and Xen’drik. These agents are mostly unpossessed Chosen, although the quori have used a psychic domination power called mind seed to subvert members of other races. Most Chosen who serve the Dark are groomed for this service from birth, ensuring that they possess the skills and devotion required. These Chosen families call themselves the shadow lines. They are aware of the power they serve, and they believe that through their service they are destined to become quori themselves after death (another lie as quori can only be born from the substance of their home plane and their number is always static).
–41 YK
Prince Galifar ir’Wynarn, a descendant of Karrn the Conqueror and the future King Galifar I of the nation that also bore his name, is born in the city of Korth in -41 YK, the son of the ruling Warlord of Karrnath. Galifar grew up eagerly devouring the stories surrounding his famous ancestor and harbored a dream to do what Karrn could not—unite all of the human nations of central Khorvaire under one crown.
A series of border skirmishes broke out in -41 YK that lasted until -31 YK and eventually drew in the fighting forces of all five of the human nations of central Khorvaire. The conflict became a low-grade struggle known as the Border Wars. The conflict had begun as each nation’s frontier nobles battled over the right to expand into the best agricultural lands and gain control of the continent’s water sources as Khorvaire’s growing economic prosperity led to an increase in population density. And, as always, the feudal nobility of the Five Nations sought more lands to increase their own political power.
–20 YK
Galifar ir’Wynarn became the Warlord of Karrnath after the death of his father shortly before his twenty-first birthday in -20 YK. Following Galifar’s ascent to the throne, he began a massive military build-up in Karrnath aimed at reestablishing Karrn the Conqueror’s empire—and extending beyond it. Galifar’ s expansion of the Karrnathi military goes over well with the Karrn aristocracy, who expect to greatly enrich themselves in lands and wealth seized from the rest of the Five Nations.
But if the Karrnathi nobles expected their new warlord to pile up the treasures of Khorvaire at their feet, they were sadly mistaken. Galifar had grown up during the Border Wars, a decade-long conflict that saw the Five Nations battle over land rights and water sources. He saw the cruelty and shortsightedness of the Karrnathi warlords, including his father, and he decided that those currently in charge were wasting the potential of the Five Nations.
Galifar envisioned a united kingdom covering all of central Khorvaire made up of five equal parts, where petty disagreements were put aside and the people worked to improve lives and advance the human condition. Young Galifar had studied the exploits of his famous ancestor and decided that in many ways Karrn the Conqueror had had the right idea. Only by combining their resources and efforts could the human nations of Khorvaire achieve the next level of civilization. Where Karrn failed, in Galifar’s opinion, was in his cruelty, his bloodlust, and his desire for aggrandizement above all other concerns. Galifar swore to avoid these failings and find a higher purpose to lead the way towards the unification of the Five Nations.
During the first decade of his rule over Karrnath, Galifar began preparations to see his dream become a reality. While Galifar hoped to convince the Five Nations to accept his plan, he knew that this best chance of uniting the kingdom was to have a powerful army to assure compliance. He expanded the standing army of Karrnath and the feudal levy of soldiers he laid on the Karrnathi nobility and set the best minds in the nation to help him plan the kingdom he envisioned building. Then, in the eighth year of his reign (-12 YK), he began negotiations with the leaders of the other nations. It did not take the other rulers long to reject Galifar and his plans for a unified kingdom.
Undeterred, Galifar continued to explore diplomatic approaches to Khorvarien unity for the next two years (-12 YK to -10 YK). Each demonstration of shortsightedness and refusal on the parts of the other leaders of the Five Nations simply made Galifar more determined to bring his vision to reality.
–10 YK
The Warlord Galifar ir’Wynarn of Karrnath began his campaign to unite the Five Nations beneath one ruler in -10 YK. On the tenth anniversary of his rise to power in Karrnath, Galifar began a military campaign to build the empire he had long dreamed about. For the next fourteen years (-10 YK to 4 YK), this campaign would rage across central Khorvaire. During this period, Galifar demonstrated his military genius time and time again, and his five children grew to become his chief lieutenants as each reached the appropriate age. While Galifar and his Karrnathi forces did not win every battle in the war to establish the united kingdom, they did win the most important ones. Over the course of the war, the warlord-who-would-be-king made two influential diplomatic ploys that helped ensure his eventual victory. The first was to take the dragonmarked houses out of the conflict and gain their support by offering them special status in the new kingdom (see below). The second was to take his dream directly to the people of the Five Nations, allowing him to slowly win the hearts and minds of those he hoped to lead, even against their own nobles. Many people in the Five Nations had grown tired of the constant squabbling between their states, especially when they shared so much in common. Galifar’s promise of stability and a kingdom that was greater than the sum of its parts began to resonate with many Khorvarien humans from outside of Karrnath who began to volunteer to join Galifar’s armies and aid his cause (it also helped that Galifar seemed to be winning).
–3 YK
In the seventh year of his war to unite Khorvaire, Galifar made a deal with the dragonmarked houses of the Five Nations, offering them neutral status and natural economic monopolies in the newly united kingdom he was building in exchange for their financial and political support in his campaign to unite the Five Nations under one crown.
As Galifar’s armies grew and conquered more of the Five Nations, it became apparent to the patriarchs of the dragonmarked houses that Galifar ir’Wynarn might succeed where Karrn the Conqueror had failed. When the house leaders met Galifar at his request in the Karrnathi capital city of Korth at the height of his drive to unite the Five Nations, the would-be king swore to protect the houses’ integrity from all royal interference and agreed to a number of provisions that would ensure their continued economic strength by establishing official economic monopolies for each house over the area of commerce they already specialized in. In return, the houses agreed to legal restrictions on their political and military power so that they would not compete with the power of Galifar’s new state—or with the prerogatives of the Five Nations’ feudal nobility, whose support for the new kingdom was crucial.
For the next thousand years, the Korth Edicts prevented any individual member of a dragonmarked house from holding a grant of land and placed limits on the size of the house enclaves and the armed forces that could be garrisoned there. Special exceptions were carved out for House Deneith, which retained the right under the Edicts to assemble military forces specifically for mercenary service in the Blademarks and Defenders Guilds. The Edicts further specified that no member of the nobility of the new kingdom could be bound to a member of a dragonmarked house in marriage without one of the two explicitly surrendering their heritage and all their rights to a noble title or a place in the dragonmarked house. Since the dragonmarked houses could not own land, the Edicts laid out a system of rents to be paid to the Galifaran Crown (and its later successors) in exchange for the territory the houses required in the Five Nations to meet their needs. The Korth Edicts established the present-day structure of the dragonmarked houses and laid the foundation for their domination of the new Kingdom of Galifar’s trade, commerce, and craftsmanship. Only agriculture, the primary basis of the Five Nations’ economies (and foundation of the nobility’s wealth), was off-limits to the dragonmarked houses, though House Lyrandar’s Raincallers’ Guild still managed to make enormous sums off of aiding Khorvaire’s farmers.
–2 YK
The Mark of Finding appeared among the humans and half-orcs of the Shadow Marches a thousand years ago. For millennia, the Shadow Marches were the domain of the orcs of Khorvaire. It was a land scarred by the ancient conflict with the daelkyr, where the descendants of the first druidic Gatekeepers and those corrupted by the touch of Xoriat continued to battle in the darkness. Five hundred years before the Mark of Finding appeared, in -500 YK, humans had come to the Shadow Marches, refugees from the distant continent of Sarlona who were fleeing the growing power of the Inspired of Riedra in the wake of the Sundering. Though many of the orcish tribes of the Marches met the first waves of human settlers with hostility, a handful of the tribes welcomed these strangers. Over time, this union of cultures produced both the human and orcish Marcher clans of the modern age and the jhorgun’taal: the “children of two bloods” in Orcish, the half-orcs.
When the Mark of Finding appeared among the clans of the Shadow Marches, it was carried by humans and half-orcs alike. Some considered this to be a divine gift to the humans and half-breeds to make up for their greater physical frailty compared to the Marcher orcs—a magic mark in lieu of the great strength and dark-piercing eyes that Eberron had granted the orcs. The mark appeared among three clans of humans and their half-orc kin—the Aashta, Velderan, and Torrn—and over the next five centuries, the hunters of these clans would become legends within the Shadow Marches.
1 YK (998 years before the present)
Galifar now proclaimed to be King Galifar I, and his five scions—Prince Cyre, Prince Karrn, Prince Thrane, Princess Aundair, and Prince Brey— officially took control of the unified Five Nations in the name of their father in the first year of the Galifar Calendar. Fourteen years after the war of unification began (the war did not officially conclude until 4 YK because some pockets of resistance took longer to overcome), the Five Nations laid down their arms and surrendered to Galifar ir’Wynarn. True to his word, Galifar did not come as a conqueror from Karrnath—he proclaimed himself the king of a new kingdom composed of five equal parts. (Originally, it was simply “the Kingdom” or “Galifar’s Kingdom.” The new state did not officially adopt the name the “Kingdom of Galifar” until the second decade of the new king’s rule.) To ensure loyalty and to push his postwar economic development programs, Galifar I appointed each of his five children to manage the affairs of the Five Nations. As governor-princes, they would administer their portions of the realm in his name, as well as serve on a ruling council that would advise and support the new king. It helped that, in the end, the common folk respected and grew to love Galifar I and his scions, seeing them as just, fair, and ultimately visionary rulers. Galifar I established that the oldest living scion would ascend to the throne upon the current monarch’s death or abdication, whichever came first. Thus, the traditions and patterns surrounding the succession of power were set in place, helping to keep the kingdom stable until King Jarot’s scions unexpectedly broke the pattern in 894 YK, setting off the cataclysm that was the Last War.
For all of Galifar I’s visionary idealism, the Kingdom of Galifar remained a feudal monarchy, as were most of the nations that re-formed after the Last War shattered that legendary kingdom. In addition to the feudal nobility and the rural peasant farmers, a middle class of laborers and craftsmen developed in the larger towns and cities. The mercantile barons that controlled the dragonmarked houses aligned themselves with no constituent nation of Galifar, which allowed them to operate independently and in all the kingdom’s regions equally, though most could not help but associate more strongly with one nation where they had first come into existence—for instance, House Deneith was strongly associated with Karrnath, Lyrandar with Aundair, Cannith with Cyre, Sivis with Zilargo, Medani with Breland, Tharaskh with the Shadow Marches, etc.
The dragonmarked houses constituted an economic aristocracy of commerce and industry in Galifar and across Khorvaire. The blood members of each family had wealth and social status that put them firmly in the middle to upper classes of Khorvarien society. The house nobles and their immediate relatives shared the highest status in the land, equivalent to the royal houses and the highest-ranking clergy. Dragonmarked house scions further removed from the main bloodline shared and took advantage of this status as the house nobles allowed, but on their own, they ranked in the middle class.
Farmers dominated the countryside of most of the Five Nations of Galifar, raising crops and providing food for all the people of central Khorvaire. In some nations like Karrnath, the farmers were serfs indentured to the lords that controlled their lands. In others like Breland, the farmers were free peasants who owned or leased their land from the local nobility and paid taxes for protection and other services they required of the ruling class. Farmers toiled through the daylight hours and rested when darkness covered the land. They usually lived within a mile or so of a trading village, which was guarded in turn by a local lord and his keep or castle. When legal disputes arose, it was the manor lord (or his appointed officer or bailiff) who settled disagreements and issued binding rulings. Some farmers used minor arcane magic to help them with their chores. This magic might be provided by their lord or purchased from a dragonmarked house. The average farmer did not wander far from his or her home, but every family has a member that went off to fight as a mercenary or seek employment in a city or town, and everyone knew someone whose brother or sister decided to become an adventurer and leave home in search of fame or fortune.
Some Galifaran townsfolk and city-dwellers engaged in a craft or trade of some kind, though for every professional there were three or more common laborers working in the city. Merchants and shop owners, smiths, leather workers, and artisans of all descriptions lived and worked in the cities of Galifar. Many used some minor magic to ply their craft; magewrights cast magecraft to produce minor magic items; others less gifted in the arcane arts hired magewrights to assist them when the funds were available. People lived in close proximity in the cities, shopping in the markets, working, relaxing as the rare opportunity presented itself. City-dwellers had a bit more access to the conveniences of arcane magic than their rural counterparts did. The dragonmarked houses maintained pavilions and emporiums in many good-sized towns and cities, where their services could be purchased on a regular basis and also controlled most of the non-agricultural economic activities that occurred in a town or city through their royal monopoly over the guilds. Magewrights were more abundant in the towns and cities, and even the least well-to-do city had Everbright lanterns to light at least the major thoroughfares and exchanges. In a city, law and order prevailed—or at least it tried to.
A city watch usually patrolled the streets of most urban areas, while a local Galifaran Army garrison protected the trade roads and caravan routes passing nearby from bandits, goblins and other “monster” attacks. Royal courts and justices of the peace held sway over matters of law, deciding disputes and determining guilt or innocence through something akin to due process through the Code of Galifar, the uniform code of laws and punishments for infractions and crimes created by King Galifar I soon after the establishment of his kingdom and upheld by each of his successors as fairly and as impartially as possible, though the Code did discriminate between people based on their legal status as a commoner, noble or member of the clergy. The Code’s most blatant transgressions were policed by the Sentinel Marshals, an elite law enforcement order administered by House Deneith and established at the request of Galifar I. Only the most trusted dragonmarked heirs of that house were honored with a position in the Sentinel Marshals, either after serving in both the house’s Blademarks and Defenders Guilds or by special dispensation of the house. The Sentinel Marshals were elite agents sworn to the service of the Galifaran Crown and the Code of Galifar who were authorized by the ruling monarch to enforce the law across Khorvaire according to the needs of the regional authorities. The Sentinel Marshals had the right to ignore all borders and all other forms of authority save for that of the Crown in the pursuit of fugitives. They were never authorized to break the law themselves but were held accountable only to the Galifaran throne. Wherever brigands evaded local law enforcement, smugglers moved contraband across borders or criminal guilds attempted to expand their reach, the Sentinel Marshals could be called in by local authorities to deal out the Galifaran Crown’s justice.
The Sentinel Marshals imprisoned the worst and most dangerous criminal offenders in the prison of Dreadhold. Dreadhold was a prison island which floated off the northern tip of Cape Far in the Lhazaar Principalities. Established first by Karrn the Conqueror as a place for exiling deposed rulers or courtiers fallen from favor following the creation of his empire, it was converted by the early kings of Galifar into a nigh-inescapable prison set in the middle of a planar manifest zone linked to the wild lands of Lammania. The prisoners were usually powerful individuals who had to be magically restrained—in some cases even turned to stone—to prevent them from breaking out. The prison was managed, after the second century YK, by the dwarves of House Kundarak, who bore the Mark of Warding. It is also said that the dwarves used the prisoners to mine Khyber dragonshards from deep chasms beneath the island. Following the break-up of Galifar during the Last War, the new rulers of the Five Nations agreed in the Treaty of Thronehold to continue to send their worst prisoners to Dreadhold for the dwarves to guard, as long as they continued to pay Kundarak, and to continue to use the Sentinel Marshals to track down and apprehend the worst criminals who fled across national boundaries.
From the rural communities that dotted the Galifaran countryside to the villages, towns, and cities that rose across the Five Nations wherever need and circumstance came together, the people of Khorvaire fell into three economic categories: poor, middle class, and wealthy. There were ranges and degrees of wealth in each category. Six out of ten people in the Five Nations were common peasant farmers, unskilled laborers, and trades folk who were in the poor economic class, having no more than 40 or 50 silver pieces on hand at any given time, and most having considerably less.
Three out of ten people were in the middle class, including skilled laborers, prosperous traders and shop owners, skilled artisans, most nobility, low-level adventurers, and some members of the dragonmarked families who normally had a few hundred gold pieces or more on hand.
One out of ten people fell into the wealthy category, those with access to a few thousand gold pieces at any given time. This class included merchant lords, barons of commerce, the patriarchs and matriarchs of the dragonmarked families, the most popular and successful urban artisans, mid- to high-level adventurers, and the ruling feudal nobility and royalty.
Throughout the Five Nations (or at least what was left of them after the Last War ended),formal schooling in basic literacy and arithmetic was considered a right and a necessary part of every child’s training, a tradition began under Galifar I. Even rural manors maintained elementary schools for the sons and daughters of the peasants and laborers at the expense of the local lords. Private tutors provided an education for the children of the royals, landed aristocrats and the economic nobility of the dragonmarked houses. In towns and cities, schools catered to all who wished to attend. In no case was education mandatory; however, most people understood the advantages offered to them by the remnants of the Galifaran education system.
Higher education and study was available at a number of colleges and universities, as well as among the religious institutions—particularly the Church of the Silver Flame, for the Purified considered it a religious duty for every individual to be able to read the Church’s scriptures. For those who did not want to become scholars, apprenticeships and on-the-job vocational training replaced higher education. The exception to this system involved magewrights and wizards, who often attended one of the magical academies—the floating citadels of Arcanix in Aundair or the Twelve in Korth—for at least some of their training.
Without the inroads of the “technology” of arcane magic that saturates Eberron, the shape of society in Khorvaire and elsewhere would be far simpler. But though Khorvaire’s civilization has much in common with our own world’s late medieval period, make no mistake—the Five Nations of Khorvaire are not representative of a typical medieval or pre-industrial society. Whether king or commoner, the people of Khorvaire almost universally rely on arcane magic to protect their health and conduct their day-to-day lives (sometimes without even being aware of it). Even so, Eberron is by no means a modern society, and though arcane magic grants many of the same benefits as the early industrialization of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries did on our own world, it generally does so in very different ways. Of course, Khorvaire’s “pseudo-medieval” culture already shares many of the cultural and economic elements of a later Renaissance or even eighteenth-century human society as it developed on Earth. This is an important point because it underscores the fact that the benefits granted by the wide-scale manipulation of magic are not provided by arcane factories of mass production. Instead, Eberron’s magical wonders remain the purview of individual practitioners, artisans, and expert crafters. While skycoaches may fly among the soaring towers of Sharn, it is important to remember that each skycoach is the product of individual effort by skilled designers, craftsmen, and spellcasters. Though House Cannith’s blacksmiths might chant spells to improve they way they work, their individual forges continue to spit out items just one at a time. While airship travel allows fast, safe, and expensive transport across large distances, each airship is a one-of-a-kind product produced for House Lyrandar by Zilargo workshops that are themselves unique foundries of often-competitive talent. While the streets of many Khorvarien cities are illuminated with Everbright lanterns, their magic is individually cast and maintained by ranks of professional spell chandlers. No central reservoir of arcane magical energy powers these and other wonders through some magical analog of an Industrial Age “ power grid.” Professional spellcasters called magewrights differ from adventuring spellcasters in that they earn a daily living by casting spells for payment. A true wizard is a master of this art, able to grasp the metamagical principles behind any spell he can find or create. But this level of arcane talent is a rare gift. Still, most common folk can learn to cast one or two minor spells, if they work hard enough.
While they lack the diversity or raw power of the wizard, warlock or sorcerer, these lesser spellcasters bring simple magic to the marketplace and into the world. These are the magewrights. Just like the term artisan, “magewright” is a generic term encompassing dozens of professions.“Magewright” describes a character’s magical skill but it tells you nothing about the actual trade he practices. A commoner seeking to learn magic would not go to “magewright school.” Instead, he would become an apprentice wordsmith or seek out a traveling tinker who might share the secrets of his trade. Without the daily spell maintenance of magewrights and others, Eberron would seem a very different place. While the possession of dragonmarks nearly guarantees a professional spellcaster economic viability in one of the houses that dominate the trade and industry of Khorvaire, unmarked spellcasters can still earn a living by working for the various guilds (though dragonmarked houses own the controlling interests in these enterprises). The vast majority of magewrights only have a single level in the class. These are primarily commoners or tradesmen who trained as a magewright in order to learn a single useful spell. The most common choice is magecraft, a ritual that guides an artisan’s hands and infuses his work with a touch of magic. An innkeeper might take a single level of magewright to gain access to spells that allow him to magically clean his establishment or create an invisible magical server, while a translator could take one level in the class to learn how to magically speak, write and read other languages. These dabblers are not defined by their arcane knowledge; instead, they know a single trick that enhances their mundane skills. Because of professional spellcasters, most people in Khorvaire enjoy a standard of living above that which they could otherwise normally attain in a pre-industrial society. Most people have enough liquid money to purchase transport on a short-range skycoach, and all citizens benefit from the Everbright lanterns set along the major thoroughfares of large Khorvarien cities. Of course, plenty of magical services which only the wealthy and motivated can afford also exist.
As the heroes of the world, adventurers often break most of the rules concerning life in Khorvaire—and when a rule does not exist to cover what they do, they invent one. Adventurers move easily among all walks of life. They can champion the common folk, protect the middle class, or engage in missions for the wealthy. Adventurers form into groups, knowing that whatever one can do, four or five can do better. No single adventurer possesses all of the skills and abilities necessary to succeed; the team provides the capabilities and companionship required to get the job done.
Groups come together through chance meetings, fortuitous circumstances, open calls, and guild connections. They stay together if they work well as a team and learn to trust each other. While many adventuring parties operate as freelancers who take up each quest as it comes their way, some acquire patrons who pay their expenses and provide the missions that drive them. Now, any adventuring party can hire itself out for a mission or two. A patron, however, often defines the party’s motivation and the reason for sticking together. A patron can be a wealthy noble or merchant lord, an organization, dragonmarked house, or a government. Patrons command allegiance based on gold, an exchange of services, or a common goal. A dragonmarked house, a church, a university, the Brelish Crown, and the Korranberg Chronicle are all examples of adventuring party patrons. Whatever the case, the common folk love to read about or hear stories and ballads concerning champions of good and agents of evil. The Korranberg Chronicle, in particular, presents stories that follow adventurers from the towers of Sharn to the mysterious jungles of Xen’drik and back again on a regular basis.
Many towns and cities of Khorvaire had long traditions of town criers, news bearers who presented important or interesting information in town squares, nobles’ courts, or other public gathering places. It was not long before the magical arts allowed for a more permanent method of presentation, and the broadsheet chronicles were born in the early centuries of the long peace brought by the establishment of the Kingdom of Galifar. The simplest chronicles first appeared as scrolls nailed to public message boards containing the pertinent news of the week. More ambitious chronicles, including the Breland Ledger, the Sharn Inquisitive, and the Aundairian Scroll, are presented as folded broadsheets nested together to form simple, unbound books. Each edition is collected and stored, eventually being bound as a chronicle of news and information.
By far, the most well-known and widely-read chronicle across Khorvaire is the Korranberg Chronicle. Thanks to its relentless and mostly unbiased coverage of the Last War, and through a distribution deal with House Orien, the Korranberg Chronicle enjoyed a loyal and avid readership throughout central Khorvaire. A typical edition of the Korranberg Chronicle featured news from around the Five Nations, Zilargo, and the Mror Holds, as well as stories of adventurers and exciting expeditions, business solicitations, royal proclamations, and almanac information. While the main offices were located in the gnomes’ city of Korranberg in Zilargo, the Chronicle employed chroniclers of every race far and wide and maintained field offices in every one of the major nations that once comprised Galifar. House Orien distributed each edition (the Chronicle appeared three days a week; Mol, Wir, and Far) along its regular mail caravan and lightning rail runs across Khorvaire, allowing the Chronicle to reach a huge audience. Indeed, almost everyone in the Five Nations today knows the Chronicle slogan: “If it happens in the Five Nations, you’ll read about it in the Korranberg Chronicle.”
Due to the widespread influence of the dragonmarked houses across Khorvaire, Common, a spoken and written tongue descended from the Sarlonan language and alphabet called Old Common and used by the first humans to reach Khorvaire with Lhazhaar, developed into the universal language of the Five Nations and then of the Kingdom of Galifar. Commerce and diplomacy used Common to communicate on a level playing field. It is prevalent and as universal as any language could be across the continent. Common was the primary language of the Five Nations. It was a necessary second language in the Mror Holds and Zilargo and was used extensively even among the halflings of the Talenta Plains. Other prominent languages in use on the continent included Draconic, Dwarven, Abyssal, Elven, Goblin, and Orcish.
The capital of the Kingdom of Galifar, Thronehold, was established by King Galifar I soon after he completed his unification of the new state. Thronehold rested in the middle of Scions Sound at the very heart of central Khorvaire. Though Galifar I had united the Five Nations and forged a new kingdom, he realized early on that the new monarchy could not rule from one of the existing realms. To do so would be to put one of the Five Nations above the other, and that would lead to political breaks and fractures that would eventually destroy the kingdom. From the moment young Galifar stood on the banks of Scions Sound and looked upon the mysterious island that rested just out of reach of the Five Nations, he knew that the island would play an important role in the realization of his dream of unification. On this island, he would build his capital—the fortress of Thronehold. Prior to the birth of Galifar, the island was considered to be haunted, a place of the old ways of Khorvaire before humanity arrived on its shores. That reputation and its central location between the borders of the Five Nations made it the perfect place for Galifar I’s purposes. The great castle of Thronehold became a shining symbol of the new kingdom, and the island around it developed into a wondrous showcase for the realm. It remained so until the Last War when it became a reminder of all the glory that was lost.
After King Jarot’s death and the rejection of the line of the ir’Wynarn succession that led to the Last War, the island and castle of Thronehold were largely abandoned. A special detachment of House Deneith guards, the Throne Wardens, remained in place to protect and maintain the castle, but all government functions ceased with the collapse of the united kingdom. The town of Throneport, a support community in the shadow of the castle, mutated as the Last War progressed. It became a place for dissidents, spies, criminals, and mercenaries, and the once opulent and safe port turned into a rough-and-tumble town without law or allegiance to any single nation. This neutrality has served Throneport well; by 975 YK it had grown into a small city in which all of the nations and dragonmarked houses had at least a small presence, turning it into a hotbed of international intrigue. The Treaty of Thronehold further solidified this position, establishing the city of Throneport as a multinational province under the control of small peacekeeping forces from Aundair, Breland, Karrnath, and Thrane, with House Deneith’s Throne Wardens in place to make sure the terms of the treaty were honored. Today, the small city is neutral ground, but the castle of Thronehold and its grounds remain off-limits and under the watchful protection of the Throne Wardens.
Ultimately, Galifar ir’Wynarn succeeded in establishing the united kingdom of Khorvarien peoples—humans, elves, eladrin, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, shifters, half-orcs, kalashtar, and changelings —that he had long dreamed about during his childhood. Unlike his ancestor Karrn the Conqueror, Galifar built the kingdom that bore his name not through conquest but ultimately by persuading the peoples of the Five Nations that their societies could be greater than the simple sum of their parts.
15 YK
King Galifar I established the Arcane Congress in the village of Arcanix in Aundair. While Galifar I believed he had cemented the loyalty of the dragonmarked houses to his new kingdom through their acceptance of the Korth Edicts, he was aware that the greatest institution of magical learning and arcane research on Khorvaire, the Twelve, was entirely within the hands of the houses. The houses controlled the direction of the magical research conducted at the Twelve and also were entitled to first use of all the possible inventions created by the wizards, sorcerers, and magewrights who called the Twelve home. Galifar I wanted to balance the power of the Twelve by creating his own state-backed arcane research institution. To this end, the king established the Arcane Congress in Aundair and specifically tasked it with the pursuit of research in arcane magic and the teaching of magic to new generations of mages, sorcerers, artificers, and magewrights who would produce magical innovations that would improve the lives of all the people of Galifar. The Arcane Congress consisted of a council of wizards, artificers and sorcerers who explored the limits of the arcane arts of magic.
The village of Arcanix, located along the southeastern banks of Lake Galifar, is now known for the floating towers of wizardry that surround it. These towers serve as places of arcane learning, where the tower mentors help train the next generation of magewrights, artificers, sorcerers, and wizards. The village also housed the Arcane Congress itself. The members of the Congress oversaw the towers of wizardry, advised Galifar’s—and later Aundair’s monarch—on all things magical, and conferred with colleagues in the other nations—despite a rivalry with the wizards of the Twelve. Apprentices came from all over Khorvaire to Arcanix to train as magewrights, artificers, wizards and sorcerers at the more advanced arcanists’ sides, and much of the village’s economy revolved around providing for the students. Fewest were the students selected for wizard training because the mentors held every candidate to the highest possible standards. While traders and the occasional visitor passed through Arcanix, most of the Aundairian common folk steered clear of the magically volatile village and the area around it.
28 YK
The Galifar–Lhazaar War, a decade-long conflict between the Kingdom of Galifar and the pirates and buccaneers of the Lhazaar Principalities, began in 28 YK. The Lhazaar Principalities developed during the same period when the Five Nations were formed, more than a thousand years before the birth of the Kingdom of Galifar. By the time King Galifar I united the Five Nations, the Principalities were already well-established, as was their inhabitants’ well-deserved reputation as raiders and pirates. When Galifar I proclaimed that his kingdom “stretched across the width and breadth of Khorvaire,” the Lhazaar pirates’ princes ignored him. Their domains in the east were far from the great cities of the Five Nations in central Khorvaire, separated by a formidable mountain range and the endless seas over which the princes ruled supreme.
By 28 YK, Galifar I had consolidated his hold over the Five Nations and turned his attention to the threat to his new state’s integrity that lay in the east. The Lhazaar princes and sea barons were wreaking havoc among Khorvaire’s coastal communities, interfering with shipping and refusing to bend to the will of the Galifaran Crown. Thus began the Galifar–Lhazaar War, a series of naval engagements that lasted nearly a decade. The sea barons knew the currents better and started out with better vessels, but Galifar I dedicated his efforts to build a powerful navy. Aided by magic and the help of some of the dragonmarked houses, particularly the sea-going half-elves of House Lyrandar, the Royal Galifaran Navy was able to garner enough victories on the Sea of Rage to force the Lhazaar princes to meet to discuss terms. In the end, the Principalities agreed to officially become a part of Galifar I’s united kingdom but to remain largely autonomous in their local affairs. The Lhazaar sea princes would be left more or less independent within their own domains, yet they each agreed to pay tribute to King Galifar I and recognize him and his heirs in the House of Wynarn as the legitimate rulers of the mainland kingdom, as well as to refrain from attacking Galifaran shipping (an agreement often honored in the breach).
32 YK
The Five Nations of Galifar eventually adopted the names of King Galifar I’s royal children and their first governor- princes as their own, becoming Aundair (formerly Thaliost), Cyre (formerly Metrol), Karrnath, Thrane (formerly Daskara), and Breland (formerly Wroat). This change was meant to mirror the united kingdom’s own adoption of the name of its first monarch and founder.
For over five hundred years after the destruction of the city of Sharn during the War of the Mark, the superstitious folk of pre-Galifar Breland had shunned the ruined towers of the metropolis that had once stretched above the bluffs of the Dagger River, muttering about the curses of the aberrant dragonmarked lords. Despite the superstitions, the location continued to have the same considerable strategic and economic value it had possessed under the Dhakaani and the previous human regime. When King Galifar I took control of the Five Nations and established his unified kingdom, he sent a force of Galifaran troops to rebuild the ruined city. Continuing his excellent relations with the dragonmarked houses, Galifar I granted House Cannith a critical role in the reconstruction of the city that was still called Sharn, the City of Towers. House Cannith used its resources to help raise Sharn’s towers once more and to this day remains one of the most influential forces in what has become the largest and most cosmopolitan city on Khorvaire. Galifar brought in skilled dwarven engineers from the recently subdued Mror Holds and a few members of the Brelish nobility invested a great deal of their gold in the City of Towers’ resurrection. The chief among these aristocrats was the Brelish ir’Tain family. Even in the present time, the ir’Tains are known as the slumlords of Sharn and over the centuries since the city’s restoration, the family has made a fortune from its many tenement properties. Today the ir’Tains are one of the most powerful noble families in Breland because of their control over much of Sharn’s land; Lord Hass ir’Tain is an influential member of the Brelish Parliament and his mother Lady Celyria ir’Tain is the unquestioned leader of Sharn’s high society. In addition to the ir’Tains, other powerful noble families and merchant groups flocked to the new Galifaran commercial center and Sharn grew and prospered over the next millennium.
When the work on the reconstruction of Sharn began, only a few towers remained standing above the ancient Dhakaani foundations and pre-Galifar human ruins. It was believed that the aberrant curse of the Lady of the Plague still lingered in the darkness and the remnants of the older cities that had stood above the Dagger River were quickly sealed away by the Galifaran workers. In time they were forgotten, lost in the shadows of the new towers that soon stretched towards the sky. Occasionally, treasure-hunters and adventurers ventured down into the haunted levels that lay between the Lower City and the industrial workshops known as the Cogs, but the vast majority of the City of Towers’ citizens knew little or nothing of the ruins that lay in the depths of their home.
Before long, Sharn had become the largest metropolis in Khorvaire, a center for trade, diplomacy and political intrigue, a city with an important role to play in the future of the continent.
40 YK
At the age of eighty-five winters, King Galifar I abdicated his throne and passed the rulership of the united kingdom he had founded to his oldest remaining son, Prince Cyre ir’Wynarn, the Governor-prince of Cyre. This event marked the establishment of an important tradition for the feudal nobility that came to rule Galifar—the eldest of the ruling monarch’s children, regardless of gender, always succeeded to the throne.
53 YK
King Galifar I, Galifar ir’Wynarn, at last passed away to the Shadowfell thirteen years after handing over the throne of the great kingdom he founded to his son, King Cyre. Galifar, who had died at the age of ninety-eight winters, was buried with great ceremony beneath the great keep he had constructed at Thronehold and his funeral was attended by all the great and the good of Khorvaire, as well as tens of thousands of common Galifarans who wished to pay their respects to the visionary leader whose rule had greatly improved their lives.
106 YK
The dwarven Clan Kundarak of the Mror Holds formally became the dragonmarked House Kundarak in charge of much of Khorvaire’s banking and financial transactions with the aid of the gnomes of House Sivis of Zilargo in 106 YK. Kundarak was recognized by the already established dragonmarked houses as the newest member of the Twelve (though only ten houses existed at this point in time).
299 YK
The Church of the Silver Flame was born in the nation of Thrane in 299 YK. In that year, a terrible eruption split the ground of that kingdom in what is now the city of Flamekeep and a great pillar of crimson fire emerged from the resulting chasm. No one understood the significance of the blazing column of flame, but most who dared approach it felt unrelenting malevolence in its fierce, radiating heat. A cataclysm of untold proportions had befallen Khorvaire: one of the rakasha rajahs, a fiendish Overlord, had managed to break the magical bonds long ago placed upon it by the sacrifice of the couatl race and free itself from its arcane imprisonment deep in Khyber.
Tira Miron, a paladin dedicated to the Sovereign Dol Arrah, received a powerful vision about this strange fire while exploring the western reaches of the realm. In her vision, a great rainbow-winged serpent, a couatl, warned her that a terrible evil was emerging in the east, riding crimson fire from the depths of Khyber itself. Tira rallied the local Galifaran military forces of Thrane and defeated the dark creatures that had come to venerate the crimson fire and help free the malevolent entity trapped within its flames. With her great magical sword Kloinjer, its pommel capped with a Khyber dragonshard, Tira turned to face the emerging fiendish Overlord just as the great serpent with the rainbow-feathered wings of her vision appeared and dove headfirst into its infernal fire. Tira watched as the winged serpent and the demon struggled in the flames. The battle within the fire seemed to last for an eternity, and as she watched the fiend began to overcome the rainbow serpent.
Horrified, Tira saw the demon strike a crippling blow. The couatl, calling on its last reserves of celestial power, encircled the Overlord and buried its fangs into the fiend’s fiery throat. At the same moment, the couatl sent a mental plea to Tira, and the paladin did not hesitate. She leaped into the fire, plunging Kloinjer through the writhing serpent and deep into the demon Overlord’s blazing flesh. Then, the legend says, a powerful explosion rocked the entire continent of Khorvaire. The hot crimson fire became a cool silver flame, the physical expression of the restoration of the couatl race’s wards over the Overlord. Tira remained within her soul now part of the divine fire that had replaced the malevolent conflagration.
Tira Miron became the Voice of the Silver Flame, and a new religion was born. Flamekeep, a simple stone castle, was erected around the ever-burning pillar of silver fire. Deep within the chasm, at the point where the divine fire still erupts from the earth, it is said that mighty Kloinjer’s blade is buried almost to the hilt, binding demonic Overlord, the feathered serpent, and human paladin together forever.
In time, the castle grew to become a cathedral, and a city grew up around it, also taking the name of Flamekeep. By 400 YK, the Church of the Silver Flame that had grown up around this event had become the dominant religion of Thrane. The Sovereign Host, accepting of most faiths, saw the Silver Flame as just another expression of the divine pantheon on Eberron. The Silver Flame, on the other hand, tolerated the Host but had little love for faiths that did not accept the cleansing light of the Flame.
Over the centuries, the kings and queens of Galifar, and their sons and daughters who governed the realm of Thrane as its governor-princes had a mixed relationship with the faith of the Silver Flame. As Thrane’s people began to turn to this faith in droves, the House of Wynarn was forced to accept the Church of the Silver Flame as a force within the kingdom.
Early on, they tried to restrict it to Thrane, but the faithful were zealous, and missionaries soon appeared to bring word of the Silver Flame to the rest of Khorvaire. More than one Wynarn scion over the centuries, while governing in Thrane, adopted the faith. One particularly dark episode occurred in 558 YK when Queen Joliana reached the Galifaran throne after serving as Thrane’s governor-princess. She was a devoted follower of the Silver Flame and decided that under her rule all of Galifar would accept the Silver Flame as the one true faith. A few bloody clashes almost led to civil war before Joliana died suddenly and mysteriously before the second year of her reign had ended in 560 YK. The work of House Phiarlan’s assassins in Joliana’s death has long been suspected.
The Church of the Silver Flame, unlike Eberron’s majority faith of the Sovereign Host, developed a rigid ecclesiastical hierarchy within only a few decades of its formation. This hierarchy was composed of four formal orders, which were supplemented by various smaller brotherhoods and monastic orders. The largest of the Church’s orders was the Order of Ministers. This order included what most people would consider standard priests. They lead services and mass at the local churches, acted as community leaders, conducted theological research and liturgical debates and eventually served in Thrane’s military during the Last War. The Order of Templars included the true warriors of the Church of the Silver Flame. The Templars consisted mostly of warriors, supplemented by a substantial number of monks and a few priests. Most of the Silver Flame’s human paladins served as Templars. The Order of Friars was the Church’s missionary wing. Rather than being assigned a specific region or community, friars traveled from land to land, bringing the light of the Flame into dark places and converting all who seemed receptive to the Church’s message. They are also wandering priests, but their duties are less well-defined. They serve where they can, lead by example, conduct services, offer sermons and aid all those who require assistance. Friars are also called“priests errant,” particularly among the older Purified. The previous three orders were considered relatively equal in the eyes of the Church’s hierarchy. But the Council of Cardinals stood above the mall. Seminarians can enter the Ministers, Friars or Templars immediately upon graduation, but only experienced and well-respected priests were promoted to serve on the Council of Cardinals. Most Cardinals were raised up from the Order of Ministers, with a notable few coming from among the Order of Templars. Only very rare individuals rose from the Order of Friars. Most observers outside of the Church of the Silver Flame believe that the Council of Cardinals serves as the governing body of the faith. In truth, that body is more properly entitled as the Diet of Cardinals and its members are drawn from the ranks of the Council. The Council itself is simply another order, like the others, albeit a higher-ranking one. As in any specialized profession, the use of arcane nomenclature helps separate the insiders from the outsiders.
The highest position in the Church of the Silver Flame is held by the Voice of the Silver Flame, though one could argue that it is not a position at all, so much as it is a part of the Flame itself.The paladin Tira Miron joined with the Silver Flame in 299 YK, binding a couatl and the escaped demon Overlord they were attempting to destroy. Since being joined with the paladin, the Flame has openly communicated with mortals— Tira serves literally as the Flame’s voice to the faithful. The Keeper of the Flame serves as the intermediary between the Voice of the Silver Flame and the Diet of Cardinals. The Keeper is not elected but is called to the position by the Voice. The current Keeper is an eleven-year-old girl named Jaela Daran. A Cardinal was a member of the Council of Cardinals, the most senior priests of the Church. Cardinals rarely conduct ceremonies of their own and have little to do with governing the affairs of individual cities now that Thrane is a theocracy, as they are too busy running the Church itself. Only a cardinal can serve on the Diet of Cardinals—the actual ruling body of the Church that stands above the Council—but not all cardinals are members of the Diet. Because cardinals must be nominated and elected by other cardinals, the overwhelming majority of them come from the ranks of the archbishops, since the Cardinals have regular interactions with few others in the Church. A priest who holds authority over the bishops of several major cities is an archbishop. Only the Order of Ministers has members of this rank and it is the highest rank clergy can obtain without joining the Council of Cardinals. A bishop holds authority over all the priests of a given city or other large community where the Church operates. The term is used primarily by the Order of Ministers. The equivalent title in the Order of Templars is “Prefect.” There is no equivalent rank among the Order of Friars. A friar who wishes to advance farther in the clerical hierarchy must change orders. Those who have successfully joined the priesthood, but have obtained no higher position, are simply called priests. The overwhelming majority of Silver Flame functionaries never rise higher than this rank. A priest in the Order of Ministers is referred to as “Father” or “Mother.” A priest in the Order of Friars is referred to as “Brother” or “Sister.” A priest of the Order of Templars is “Sir” or “Lady.”The lowest rank of true priests, Pilgrims are the novice members of the Order of Friars. They are lower in the hierarchy than starting members of the other orders, because their responsibilities are fewer and less well-defined. The final two ranks of the Church are the acolytes and seminarians who are still in training to become priests but have no formal ranks as of yet.
In some regions, but particularly in Thrane, worship of the Silver Flame is the dominant religion. Most locals are born into the faith rather than being converts to it. With that said, in every area of Khorvaire save for Thrane, the Church still gains as many new members from conversion as from procreation. It is the only major religion of Eberron that specifically preaches a need to change the world and that good will ultimately triumph over evil and justice over injustice. Other faiths preach the need to protect Eberron (as the druidic sects do) or to ascend from mortal life to divinity(like the Blood of Vol), but few grant their worshipers the sense of purpose provided by the Silver Flame, which seeks to transform Eberron into a utopia for all virtuous people. Worship of the Silver Flame appeals to those who have suffered injustice or who seek to make the world a better place. It also resonates with people who have a strong martial ethic—many of those who fight for good in the name of the Silver Flame are in it more for the fight than the good.
The Church of the Silver Flame has always been strongest in Thrane. For many years, that nation’s rulers were followers of that faith. The Diet of Cardinals would eventually take over the nation in 914 YK and transform it into a theocracy where the Keeper of the Flame and the cardinals wielded secular as well as spiritual power. In most of the other nations of Khorvaire, the Silver Flame is just one faith among many. Although the Church might attempt to convert members of the government and influence political decisions, it has only a limited ability to do so. Some of its more zealous factions call for an open coup d’etat, claiming that the violence would be more than justified by the good the Flame could do with all of the Five Nations under its sway. Fortunately, the majority of the Diet of Cardinals is opposed to this action—the Church, powerful though it is, lacks the secular means to carry it out in any event. The Purified coexist with the Vassals of the Sovereign Host and the other faiths and preach to the nobility and the dragonmarked houses as much as they are able. The Church also has made itself indispensable by lending its templars to the Galifaran Army, and in the present time, to the individual nations’ armies—if those armies are fighting for a cause it can support. Only in areas of Khorvaire vehemently opposed to the Silver Flame’s theology, such as Droaam, the nation of “monsters,” do the Purified not operate openly and actively. Even there, however, the Church of the Silver Flame has a few hidden enclaves of templars who seek to do what good they can. Most importantly, they watch for those rare natives of that land who seem unhappy with their current circumstances and might be suitable candidates for conversion. A faithful insider within an organization or state was often a far more potent weapon for the Church than half a dozen holy warriors.
347 YK
The Khoravar dragonmarked House Lyrandar took possession of an island off the northern coast of Khorvaire with the permission of the Galifaran Crown and Aundair’s regional authorities to create Stormhome, the City of Escapes, the seat of their house. The large island off the northern coast of Aundair was once a bleak, storm-blasted outpost at the entrance to Scions Sound. In 347 YK, House Lyrandar petitioned to turn the island into a house enclave, and the Galifaran Crown relented—with the caveat that it could maintain a protective military force there to monitor the comings and goings at sea. Three years later, the weather mages and dragonmarked heirs of Lyrandar had changed the climate of the island. While cold weather and storms continued to rage around it, Stormhome itself became a temperate paradise. Today, Stormhome remains the crowning achievement of House Lyrandar’s skills and abilities. The city that bears the island’s name serves as the primary headquarters for the House of Storm and the seat of its present-day matriarch. Today, the Kingdom of Aundair considers the island to be an extension of its nation, and House Lyrandar continues to permit an Aundairian military contingent to use part of the island as a base. The Aundairian Navy patrols the northern coast, stopping at Stormhome for supplies and to escape the bitter cold wind that blows across the bay.
In addition to the presence of many of the leading members of House Lyrandar and their retainers, a number of other wealthy nobles regularly visit the city. It has become something of a vacation spot, and House Lyrandar has permitted House Ghallanda to establish elaborate resorts within the city limits to cater to its guests. During the Last War, the island was mostly left alone by attacking forces due to House Lyrandar’s political neutrality and diplomatic position. It became a meeting place for spies from the Five Nations and a hotbed of clandestine activities between other organizations, a reputation that it continues to hold in the current day.
498 YK
At this time, expeditions from the Galifaran cities of central Khorvaire reached the Shadow Marches of far western Khorvaire. One such expedition was led by Zil gnomes, who had calculated that the distant land might hold rich deposits of dragonshards. In this, they were correct, but the discovery of the Mark of Finding was an even greater treasure. The Mark of Finding’s human and half-orc clan leaders were cunning and capable, but the House Sivis emissaries who had accompanied the Zil expedition were intent on working with the Marchers, not exploiting them. With the assistance of the gnomes, the three great dragonmarked clans of Aashta, Torrn, and Velderan and their lesser kin joined together to form House Tharashk, an Orcish word meaning “united.” The Torrn and their allied lesser clans possess the strongest druidic tradition and the greatest number of full-blooded orcs as a result. The Aashta and their lesser clans produce the sorcerers of the house and have ties to the Cults of the Dragon below. The Velderan clan was made up mostly of humans and was known for its altruistic outlook. The Torrns were usually unaligned in the struggle between light and darkness while the Aashta were too easily drawn into the shadows of Khyber. For the symbol of the house, the first ruling Tharashk Triumvirate chose the dragonne, touched with the power of dragons and a fierce hunter in the legends of both the Marcher orcs and the Sarlonan human settlers.
Tharashk was founded on the dragonshard trade, its dragonmarked heirs employing the Mark of Finding to locate shard fields while their unmarked kin mined those deposits. The three Tharashk clans’ leaders were ambitious, however, and not content to remain in the shadows. Over the four hundred years after their discovery by House Sivis, Tharashk prospectors explored the deepest corners of Eberron, drawing dragonshards and other valuable substances from Q’barra, the Demon Wastes, and Xen’drik. City-dwelling Tharashk heirs sell their services as inquisitives and bounty hunters.
512 YK
King Daroon of Galifar ordered the construction of the famed Starpeaks Observatory early in the sixth century YK. Located high in the Starpeaks, a mountain chain in northern Aundair, the Starpeaks Observatory was constructed in this year. Daroon became fascinated with the practice of charting the moons and stars, especially with the idea that these charts could provide signs and portents for the future as a part of the Draconic Prophecy. Daroon had the observatory built, but he died before construction was completed. Today the Arcane Congress uses the place to study the moons and stars and a gigantic, magical orrery representing the motion of the planes and the moons of Eberron is maintained within.
778 YK
Medusas from Khyber took possession of the ruins of the ancient Dhakaani city of Cazhaak Draal in what is now the independent nation of Droaam in western Khorvaire, where they restored the city to a semblance of life. The medusas were led by one of their kind named Sheshka, who became known as the Queen of Stone.
Many forms of life on Eberron have been shaped by the arcane magical forces that suffuse the world. This can be seen in the minor illusion-weaving ability of the gnomes, the teleporting blink dog, or the petrifying gaze of the medusa. The deadly power of a medusa can certainly inspire terror, and thinking of this creature as a simple monster is easy. But medusas are not savage predators, roaming the wastes in search of prey. The medusas of Cazhaak Draal are, on average, more intelligent than most humans, and they have a proud city-state in the midst of what has become the newborn Kingdom of Droaam. The power of the medusas is a potent weapon in the present-day arsenal of Droaam, the “nation of monsters.” The medusas were born in Khyber, and no one on the surface knows the extent of their subterranean civilization.
In 778 YK, a force of medusas emerged from the underworld and laid claim to the city of Cazhaak Draal, an ancient goblin metropolis of the Dhakaani Empire that had been abandoned since the Daelkyr War had ended millennia before. Over the course of the next two hundred years, the medusas renovated Cazhaak Draal, repairing the ruins and domesticating many of the dangerous creatures found in the region. For the most part, the medusas were content in their tiny kingdom: Cazhaak Draal was far larger than their small numbers required, and many powerful Dhakaani treasures and magical wonders existed in the ancient city. Explorers who ventured into what became known as the “Stonelands” around the city rarely returned, but the medusas had little interest in the outside world.
The Gatekeeper druids claim that medusas were magical aberrations created millennia ago by the daelkyr Orlassk, but the medusa priests of Cazhaak Draal offered their devotions to the Shadow. They claimed that the Shadow shaped many of the creatures humans see as monsters, giving the harpy her deadly voice, hiding the displacer beast from its foes, and healing the wounds of the troll. These priests view the deities of the Sovereign Host as the true evil, comparing the divine exile of the Shadow to the fear with which many humans respond to medusas and other creatures labeled monsters.
Of course, some medusas do earn their evil reputation. Several revel in their powers and petrify lesser creatures for sport. But a medusa who calls this sort of attention to herself will not last long in one of the great cities of Khorvaire. Those medusas chosen to represent the “monster” nation of Droaam (see below) at the present time in the wider world are carefully vetted by Queen Sheshka and officials of House Tharashk, which established a relationship with the “monsters” of Droaam and began to offer their services as mercenaries to the people of the Five Nations. The average medusa is more intelligent and cunning than the average human, and she understands the need to control her behavior among the soft people of Khorvaire. In the Brelish city of Sharn, for example, a medusa may move unfettered in the lawless districts, but if she enters a respectable neighborhood, she must wear eye-blinders, a metal visor secured with straps around forehead and chin; otherwise, she may be attacked by the agents of the law. Eyeblinders require a full minute to don or remove; in some cities, a medusa must have the blinders secured with a lock for the duration of her stay.
Despite their worship of the Shadow, medusas are no more inherently evil than humans or elves. Some are arrogant and proud, believing that their deadly gaze places them above mundane creatures. Others respond to the fear they encounter every day by despising those who fear them, a path that often leads to malicious motivations. But many enjoy the same pleasures that humans do, and seek out song, good company, and the satisfaction of hard work. The medusas of Cazhaak Draal have a strong tradition of stonework, both architecture and purely aesthetic sculpture, and these works have begun to come to the notice of the outside world. For instance, in recent years, Councilor Kilk of Sharn has sought permission to bring in medusa architects and masons to perform work in the district of Northedge, although to date the other councilors have refused to use city funds to pay for the services of “monsters.”
The gaze of a medusa can petrify even an ally, and as a result, a medusa does not meet the gaze of a person with whom she is conversing. Where she directs her eyes indicates her esteem for the person. She drops her eyes toward the ground to show respect, or looks up and over the person if she wishes to indicate disdain; when speaking to an equal, she glances to the left or right. If she wishes to show trust, she directs her gaze to the person but closes her eyes. While this may seem inconvenient to a human, it has little impact on a medusa. If a medusa concentrates, she can receive limited visual impressions from the serpents that make up her hair; as a result, though she seems to look elsewhere, she is actually looking through the eyes of her serpents. She can even use her serpents to see when she is blindfolded or has her eyes closed. However, she can still “see” in only one direction in this way; her serpents may look all around her, but she cannot mentally process the information from all of them at once.
789 YK
House Sivis message stations began operations in 789 YK. The gnomes of Zilargo who carried the Mark of Scribing offered a variety of services relating to communication, from magically notarizing documents to sending short messages rapidly over long distances by means of an arcane sending. Written or verbal messages could also be sent across longer distances through the use of what the house called message stations.
These outposts, found in larger towns and cities throughout Khorvaire, served as origination and termination points for relatively short verbal or written messages, similar to the technology of the telegraph on our own world. Like the lightning rail, this service was fast but limited to only specific locations that were home to a message station. At the message stations, the house’s dragonmarked members cast spells (or use paired magic items called sending stones) to send messages over a distance. The service was relatively expensive and most common people who wanted to keep in touch with friends and family elsewhere in Galifar preferred to use House Orien’s caravan-based courier and mail service. But the existence of House Sivis’ message station network was one more factor that helped to tie the diverse peoples and cultures of the Five Nations into the single state of Galifar.
797 YK
The elven wizard Mordain d’Phiarlan was one of the most skilled wizards ever to have been trained by the Twelve. But Mordain proved to be ruthless and utterly amoral, concerned only with expanding his arcane knowledge and pursuing research into the forbidden magical arts of the daelkyr, for the elven mage was consumed with the ambition to create new forms of life as the lords of Xoriat had done. Mordain went too far even for the Twelve when he began to delve deep into the lost secrets of the Closed Circle of Sharn, a dark wizards circle of the City of Towers that had been wiped out by a combined strike between the Church of the Silver Flame and Sharn’s other two wizards circles, the Esoteric Order of Aureon and the Guild of Starlight and Shadows, in 641 YK. The Closed Circle’s members had been researching the power of the daelkyr and the other dark secrets of the Dragon Below and Sharn’s city government had approved the strike. Mordain returned to the Closed Circle’s ruined sanctuaries and recovered as much of their dark lore as he could manage. When the Twelve, at last, discovered the extent of his research and that he had been using several unwilling members of the common races as test subjects for his hideous experiments in producing new aberrations, he was excoriated from House Phiarlan and handed over to the Sentinel Marshals for justice. According to the records of Salyon Syrralan d’Sivis, the Twelve tried to execute Mordain after he was tried and found guilty of murder but failed. Salyon’s account states that Mordain was bathed in acid, burned at the stake, drowned, and even dismembered, and after each attempt, “he rose again, his vigor unchecked and flesh rebound.”Mordain’s victims were not the only ones who had been altered by the flesh-shaping magic of the daelkyr. Mordain was finally petrified by the Twelve and sent to Dreadhold, but he escaped before reaching that island prison; Salyon speculated that “no lesser mage could set his will over the flesh of Mordain.” Where Mordain escaped to remained unknown for almost a century, though in fact, he fled into the wild lands of what would one day become the nation of Droaam.
802 YK
The Kingdom of Galifar, in cooperation with the dragonmarked houses, funded the upgrade of the trade city of Stormreach on the northern peninsula of Xen’drik in 802 YK. The city of Stormreach had a fascinating history. Forty thousand years before the present time, Stormreach had been a city of giants and served as the capital city of the Cul’sir Empire. That city’s remnants were still visible throughout modern Stormreach, including the great statute of a giant ruler known only as the Emperor that looked out over the harbor,the rings of standing stones that continuously radiated magic, the colossal, cyclopean walls that divided the city’s districts and the floating edifices that defied gravity throughout the city. Over the centuries after the fall of the giant civilizations on Xen’drik, communities of sahuagin and thri-kreen had also made their homes in the city before being wiped away by an unknown force.
Stormreach is relatively small—its population could live in a single ward within Sharn—but itis a free city; for all intents and purposes, it is an independent nation with its own customs and traditions. The Code of Galifar does not apply here, and the rulers of Stormreach consider themselves the equals of any king in Khorvaire. To understand the culture of Stormreach, one must look to its history. Stormreach is haunted by its past. Born in the current age, the city is a human creation, but the region’s history stretches back long before the rise of human civilization. The giants of Rushemé say that the region is cursed and point to the ruins of a half-dozen civilizations as proof. Scholars from the Library of Korranberg and Morgrave University have studied these ruins for decades and have created a simple map of the region. But many of the greatest secrets remain. Uncovering the truth is a challenge for adventurers—and a task that has already claimed the lives of hundreds.
The great Library of Korranberg in Zilargo is filled with books written about Xen’drik and Aureon himself, the Sovereign of knowledge, could not condense its full history into only a few paragraphs (like those above or below!).
The history of Stormreach begins in the Age of Demons. Much about this age eludes modern scholars. The dominion of the demon Overlords stretched across the face of Eberron. There is no question that fiendish Overlords ruled domains in Xen’drik and that the dragons and couatls opposed them and might have drawn the Titans, the giants’ mythic ancestors, into the struggle. Explorers have occasionally found traces of the past: the magic blade of a rakshasa warrior or a brass spire in the style of Ashtakala, the citadel of the Lords of Dust in the Demon Wastes. According to the storytellers of Rushemé, it was in this age that a curse was placed upon the land near the northern ocean. Some scholars believe that a terrible secret is hidden deep beneath Stormreach, below the most ancient ruins of the giants.
Although some believe this land to be cursed, others have always been drawn to it. The titan Cul’sir made this region the center of his empire during the Age of Giants. Many sages believe that the Emperor, the statue towering over the present city’s harbor, is a representation of Cul’sir himself, set to guard the city against the demons of the past. Researchers are still struggling to reconstruct the events leading up to the devastation of the original giant cultures of Xen’drik. It is clear that elves lived among the Cul’sir giants, most likely as slaves; many tools and structures from this period are designed for use by the smaller elves. What records have been recovered emphasize that the city played a critical role during the quori invasion of Xen’drik and was a focal point for arcane research tied to the giants’ war effort. The historical records are obscure about what the city’s wizards were researching but hint at a tremendous power source beneath the city. Whether it was a creation of the giants or a force they were trying to tap into is unknown.
The defeat of the quori set the stage for the elven uprising against the giants. Relics found in the jungles around Stormreach suggest an elven campaign of guerrilla warfare lasting for centuries. This quiet struggle was punctuated by pitched battles. According to Tairnadal tales, the great elf hero Dyrael Morain led an attack on Stormreach in an effort to “destroy the greatest evil in this dark land.” Dyrael and his forces, the largest elf army ever seen at that time, were annihilated, but the Tairnadal still honor his bravery and sacrifice. Many elves of the Valaes Tairn have come to Xen’drik and searched for Dyrael’s bones and his legendary magical blade in the fields south of Stormreach.
The Age of Giants came to an end in a wave of epic magic and dragonfire. Compared to much of Xen’drik, the ruins of Stormreach are well-preserved; the colossal watchman of the Emperor is almost untouched. Other sections of the city were partially buried but otherwise left intact. The giant inhabitants were slaughtered, but some sages believe the dragons held back in dealing with Stormreach itself—that for some reason they were afraid to unleash their full power against the city.
The devastation of Xen’drik left a continent in chaos. The archeological record suggests that a number of cultures found footholds in the region around Stormreach. But each of these settlements collapsed, and by the time humans came to the area, all that was left were ghosts and shattered stone. Scholars have confirmed that the following cultures inhabited Stormreach in the past thirty thousand years. The first group to return to Stormreach was the giants, the ancestors of the modern giants of Rushemé who live near the city. The loremasters of Rushemé say that their ancestors were gripped by the Du’rashka Tul, a homicidal madness that forced them to turn on one another and destroyed their nation.
Thousands of years later, the sahuagin of the Thunder Sea came to Stormreach. The sea devils constructed an amphibious community in the flooded sewers of the original giant city. Modern sahuagin will not speak of this fallen culture. Some scholars believe this silence is due to shame— that the old sahuagin were corrupted by a dark force below the city. Others assert that the sahuagin civilization was destroyed so long ago that the modern sahuagin simply know nothing about it. The sahuagin were ultimately driven from the city by a group of giants called the Fallen Stone. Evidence suggests they were either storm giants or some sort of amphibious stone giant—perhaps a missing link between the two races. The Fallen Stone was short-lived; following their victory over the sahuagin, they apparently fell prey to a plague that resisted all forms of magical treatment. Within a century, the region was abandoned again.
The next civilization that left a clear mark on the region of Stormreach was that of the thri-kreen. In the modern age, the intelligent mantis folk of Xen’drik are few in number and largely avoid human contact. But there was a time when tens of thousands of thri-kreen inhabited the region, carving twisting tunnels into the giants’ foundations and sculpting strange monuments beneath the city. The fate of the thri-kreen remains one of the region’s greatest mysteries. The other cultures fell to battle or plague. As far as researchers have been able to tell, the thri-kreen culture came to an end instantaneously, as if the bulk of the thri-kreen population simply vanished. The thri-kreen refuse to discuss their history with humans, but the answer might be found in Stormreach’s depths.
These four cultures left clear marks on Stormreach, while others passed through with barely a trace. The Library of Korranberg has records of a gnome effort to build an outpost in Stormreach sixteen hundred years ago (around -1600 YK). After mere months, a handful of survivors returned toZilargo. They blamed their failure on hostile giants, but in recent years the scholar Hegan Del Dorian has advanced the theory that this was a cover story hiding what really happened; he points to the written testimony of a gnome sailor who speaks of a “darkness that gripped both body and soul.”
But the history of modern Stormreach itself is much less of a mystery. In the decades before 802 YK, Riedra had already been exploiting Xen’drik’s natural resources for centuries and smugglers from Breland and Zilargo had long probed the mysterious continent’s northern coast. As trade began to flourish in the Thunder Sea after the human settlement of Khorvaire, pirates from Breland, Cyre, Zilargo, and even the Lhazaar Principalities began to prey on the Galifaran shipping in the region.
The first Khorvarien humans to make landfall in the Stormreach region were pirates. They wanted an outpost to repair and resupply their ships, and the crumbling docks of Stormreach seemed a good foundation for such a hideout. They found a city in ruins, marked by the civilizations that had come before. The pirates clashed with giants, drow, and sahuagin, but they were mysteriously spared the strange horrors that befell previous settlers. A century passed without plague or warfare, and the pirates prospered. They began searching for opportunities on the continent and discovered both valuable relics in the interior and the power of kuryeva, a potent form of gin fermented from the berries of the kuryeva bush endemic to northern Xen’drik.
Piracy and smuggling grew ever more profitable in the Thunder Sea and these outlaws captains needed a base to resupply their ships. Smugglers established hideouts along the northern coast of Xen’drik, but most were quickly destroyed by monsters or the marauding Vulkoori drow clans of the interior. The rogue captains needed a truly secure refuge. Some claim it was Delera Omaren, the pirate-queen of the Thunder Sea, who laid the first stones of modern Stormreach. Others say it was Kolis Sel Shadra, the wily gnome smuggler said to own a fleet of spectral ships. Whoever began the settlement, it soon became a joint venture, with many pirate captains contributing resources to the new town in return for sanctuary within its harbor and access to its businesses. The walls of the ancient Cul’sir giant ruins provided simple fortifications for the settlement and for some reasons, the predators of the jungle seemed to shun the city.
The small outpost grew and prospered, as did the piracy it supported on the Thunder Sea. Delera Omaren and the dwarf pirate Korchan Amanatu left bloody wakes in its waters and the newly-emboldened pirates began preying on Zil, Aereni and even House Lyrandar’s shipping. House Tharashk saw the shiploads of dragonshards the pirates captured from the Riedrans and wanted to establish their own prospecting operations in the shattered land. Scholars and artificers seized the relics retrieved from the interior of Xen’drik and wanted more. But between harsh weather, the sahuagin, and the constant threat of piracy, travel was simply too dangerous. And all the while, the other dragonmarked houses also became increasingly interested in both Xen’drik’s natural resources and the hidden magical secrets of the lost giant civilizations that lay within its forbidding interior.
The Twelve, acting on behalf of the dragonmarked houses, finally appealed to the throne of Galifar to end the pirates’ depredations and establish an official Galifaran port in Xen’drik. In 800YK the king took action. Galifar’s greatest military strength lay in its land forces, but the Royal Galifaran Navy was still a force to be reckoned with. After a few sea battles in the Thunder Sea that resulted in deep losses for both sides, a gnome smuggler appeared in Thronehold to petition the court of Galifar. Kolis Sel Shadra was known by his reputation as the smuggler who had never lost a cargo—either to the Galifaran Navy, the Galifaran customs service or other pirates. Sel Shadra came to Thronehold as the representative of the four most powerful pirate captains of the Thunder Sea: the human Delera Omaren, the dwarf Yorrick Amanatu, the human Moluo Lassite and himself. Sel Shadra offered the king of Galifar a truce—if the king would offer these captains an amnesty and recognized political authority over Stormreach, the four would use their influence to disperse the pirates. After extended negotiations, the king agreed in 802 YK to an accord called the Stormreach Compact that would end the war between the pirates and Galifar, and even promised that the Galifaran Crown would join the dragonmarked houses in funding Stormreach’s expansion as Khorvaire’s primary port of call in Xen’drik. But the king insisted on one condition: that he and his successors appoint a fifth lord over the city who had the Crown’s trust. There was much debate, but in time, the four captains—now called the Coin Lords of Stormreach—agreed to grant the privateer Jolan Wylkes the title of Harbor Lord and for the five of them to collectively rule Stormreach together as an oligarchy called the Storm Lords. Wylkes was a sailor, as opposed to the Galifaran nobles who had first been proposed by the Crown. The king and his descendants held to their vow and the Storm Lords lived up to their end of the bargain as well, bringing an end to the rampant piracy.
For nearly two centuries now, Stormreach has grown and prospered. Several dragonmarked houses have established sizable enclaves within the city and the kuryeva of Molou’s Distillery is prized by connoisseurs across southern Khorvaire. There have been times of trouble—the Omaren Revolt in 890 YK when one of the Coin Lords sought to take over the city and the attack by an army of enraged giants in 946 YK—but the city has always persevered. Today, with the Last War over, Stormreach has become a preeminent destination for the more intrepid merchants, explorers and adventurers of the Five Nations, swelling the city’s population to over 11,600 people of every race and creed found on Eberron. Stormreach has also become a major center of intrigue between the dragonmarked houses, the Five Nations, the Inspired of Riedra and many other organizations, all of whom desire a chance to gain access to the many hidden secrets of the ancient past that lie deep within Xen’drik.
811-845 YK
The creation of a united Kingdom of Galifar had been very good for House Orien. Even as Orien’s mundane caravans and couriers connected the Khorvaire of the common folk and even held a royal monopoly on the delivery of mail and parcels throughout Galifar, the Mark of Passage allowed the house to offer services so exclusive—and so expensive—that few but kings and queens could afford them. In a united Galifar, nobles who might once have fought each other were forced to curry diplomatic favor and entertain their peers at court in the Five Nations’ capitals and at the national capital of Thronehold. However, the vastness of Khorvaire (not to mention the continent’s many dangers) made mundane travel for a royal retinue impractical at best when the monarch of Galifar wanted to travel across the breadth of his continental empire. As such, the teleport ability of the greater Mark of Passage quickly became House Orien’s most requested (and most profitable) service. Effortless and instantaneous travel between the noble courts of Galifar’s provinces helped establish the foundation of communication and trust among its diverse nobility that allowed the new kingdom to thrive.
As its caravan routes stabilized and Galifar grew in the millennium after its founding, Orien took on a lucrative royal commission that seemed like little more than a dream at the time: to connect Galifar’s cities with high-speed transport that would allow people and cargo to travel across the kingdom in a matter of days. In 811 YK, with the help of House Cannith’s forgeholds, the first lightning rail line was established between Fairhaven, the capital of Aundair and Flamekeep, the capital of Thrane. In 845 YK, King Jarot announced his intention to see the lightning rail connect every corner of Galifar, a task that House Orien completed in less than twenty years when lines connected all of the major settlements of the Five Nations, Zilargo, the Mror Holds, and the Talenta Plains.
House Cannith created conductor stones —wondrous magical items that, when arranged along a route in pairs, formed a magical conduit through which a coach could travel at great speed, hovering above the ground and the track laid down by the arcane stones. For propulsion, Cannith turned to the gnomes of Zilargo for the creation of a vehicle that was powered by a bound elemental—in this case, an air elemental to propel the coach through the conduit. When the stones mounted on a coach pass over the stones arranged on the ground, a sparking effect is produced, giving the lightning rail its name. Today, conductor stone
paths connect the nations of Aundair, Breland, Thrane, and Zilargo in the west, and Karrnath, the Talenta Plains, and the Mror Holds in the east. The lightning rail travels at a speed of 30 miles per hour.
With lines of Cannith-forged conductor stones spanning the Five Nations, Orien controlled three Crown-subsidized lightning rail routes, all running through the heart of the nation of Cyre’s capital, Metrol. From its humble origins on the caravan trails and trade routes of Aundair, Orien had grown into the dragonmarked house that held an empire together.
Soon after the lightning rail entered active service, providing rapid transport for large numbers of people from one part of Galifar to another, it became common practice for the local Galifaran authorities in each of the Five Nations to require travelers to carry some form of legal identification—an internal passport of a kind. As a result, most people of the middle and upper classes, at least in the civilized areas of Khorvaire (Aundair, Breland, Karrnath, Cyre, Thrane, Zilargo, and the Mror Holds) began to carry identification papers with them at all times. Issued by national governments (first by Galifar, now by the various nations) and notarized by House Sivis,these papers present a detailed physical description of a person (the wealthy sometimes commission small portraits of themselves), the person’s name and residence, and in some cases additional information about the person’s affiliations (particularly including any connection to a dragonmarked house, the landed nobility, a government, or another large institution).
Anyone who travels across national borders in Khorvaire is usually required to carry these traveling papers identifying them, their residence, their destination, and their reason for travel. Traveling papers consist of a parchment sheet with the appropriate information and an arcane watermark, carried in a small leather folder or wallet. House Sivis, House Orien, House Deneith, and House Lyrandar all offer traveling papers, for a fee, that are recognized throughout central Khorvaire.
The development of rapid, long-distance transportation and communication also allowed House Kundarak, the dwarven dragonmarked house whose heirs bore the Mark of Warding, to operate banks throughout central Khorvaire. A person who deposited funds in a Kundarak bank could request from that bank a letter of credit, which allowed him to withdraw funds from a different Kundarak bank branch anywhere in Khorvaire.
For many middle and upper-class people, this system was a convenient alternative to carrying wealth around in the form of precious gems, jewelry, or coins. Letters of credit were always notarized with arcane watermarks (usually created by gnome heirs from House Sivis), making them practically impossible to forge. House Kundarak did not charge a fee for issuing these letters of credit since their banks were already drawing on individuals’ deposits to make loans to businesses and governments across the Five Nations. This financial system contributed greatly to the rapid development of Galifar’s commercial economy in the century before the outbreak of the Last War and the development of a strong middle class that was not as dependent upon the landed nobility as in previous centuries.
832 YK
The inquisition to wipe out lycanthropes, known as the Silver Purge, was launched by the Church of the Silver Flame across western Khorvaire and ended in the Eldeen Reaches where the lycanthropic infestation had grown the most dangerous; the Purge lasted fifty years and drove the natural as well as afflicted members of the shapeshifting species almost to extinction, catching up many innocent shifters in the murderous passions of the inquisitors.
On Eberron, the moral alignment of a natural lycanthrope is not linked to his animal form. A werebear can be evil and a werewolf can be good. However, afflicted lycanthropes do often come to represent the moral persuasions to be expected from their animal type. Afflicted lycanthropes carrying an evil strain of the disease are some of the most terrifying creatures on Eberron: While a natural werewolf of an evil disposition may wear a human shape, he is still a born predator who takes joy in spilling human blood. Those afflicted by the magical disease often suffer a dramatic change in personality, regardless of the alignment of the victim before and after the curse. As a result, lycanthropes of all types have always been feared by the people of Khorvaire. Under the best circumstances, the bite of a lycanthrope means a loss of identity; in the worst, it can make a good person into a vicious killer. For an afflicted lycanthrope, this mental transformation is permanent. Even the strongest will crumbles before the supernatural power of the disease—and only powerful magical rituals can restore the former personality of the victim. In contrast, a natural lycanthrope cannot be cured; the beast is a part of his body and soul, and it cannot be stripped away. The lycanthrope born into evil may find the strength to become good, but he will always feel the predator in the back of his mind, urging him to prey on the weak and innocent.
The origin of lycanthropy remains a mystery that defies even divination; such rituals produce cryptic and often contradictory statements about moons made flesh and the darkness within. The sages of the Arcane Congress at Arcanix in Aundair and the Library of Korranberg in Zilargo have produced many theories, tracing the disease to the daelkyr, the Gloaming, manifest zones bound to Lamannia, or ancient druids. A more exotic theory comes from the Eldeen Reaches. A number of shifter tribes in the Reaches believe that the moons of Eberron are powerful spirits that watch the world below. These shifters maintain that the shifter race is not descended from natural lycanthropes who bred with humans as most mainstream scholars believe: Rather, the first lycanthropes were actually formed from shifters, who preceded the emergence of lycanthropes by millennia. There is some evidence to support this view, as the shifters of the Eldeen Reaches seem to be immigrants to Khorvaire from Sarlona, much like the humans of the Five Nations. In this case, the shifters appear to have originated in the Tashana Tundra region of northern Sarlona, which has long been home to a large population of Qiku shifter hunter-gatherers. According to this legend, the moon Olarune sought to create guardians who could protect the primal world of nature; reaching down from the sky, she touched a handful of chosen shifters, granting them the power to fully assume animal form. But the shifters’ druids, the moonspeakers, say that a thirteenth spirit is in the sky—a dark moon that hides its face from the world. This darkness corrupted Olarune’s gift, infecting many of her chosen with madness and evil. Or so the tale is told. Shifters with these beliefs have hunted evil lycanthropes for centuries: they simply lacked the resources to eliminate the threat. While these hunters are a minority among the shifters, as a race the shifters have no great love for lycanthropes. A shifter community may take risks to shelter a good lycanthrope, but no sensible person would knowingly welcome an evil werewolf into his home.
While no one knows how lycanthropy began, most know of the Silver Purge that almost brought it to an end. Around 800 YK, the power of the lycanthropic curse began to grow. The scholars of Aundair sought an answer in planar conjunctions or the influence of unknown fiends, while deep in the Eldeen Reaches shifter moonspeakers bemoaned the growing power of the unseen dark moon. Evil lycanthropes—always the most numerous of the shapeshifters—became even more vicious, and many good and unaligned lycanthropes were corrupted and drawn down into the darkness. Afflicted lycanthropes gained the ability to pass the curse to their own victims for the first time, allowing lycanthropy to spread with terrifying speed. By the early years of the ninth century YK, packs of savage werewolves were roaming across western Khorvaire at will and wererats had established warrens beneath the greatest cities of the age. Farmers lived in fear of wolves that walked like humans. What was once a superstition used to frighten children was now a horrifying reality.
The members of the Church of the Silver Flame’s Order of Templars had fought shapeshifters in the past. But the heart of the Church of the Silver Flame was in the nation of Thrane, far from the traditional Eldeen haunts of the lycanthropes. As the death toll from lycanthrope attacks mounted inAundair and Breland, the Church’s Diet of Cardinals grew increasingly concerned and the Templars began to take a more active role in the defense of the western lands, with the approval of the Galifaran Crown. The scholars of the Silver Flame who were allied with its extremist Puritan branch, and at the time controlled much of the Church’s clerical hierarchy, began to study their enemies. A number of factors colored this research: the subjects of the study were evil lycanthropes, good lycanthropes were rare and reclusive, to begin with, and many had fallen prey to the growing power of the curse. As a result, the Puritans quickly assumed that all lycanthropes were inherently evil. Many priests noticed the similarity between the hybrid forms of the lycanthropes and the common form of the rakshasa and foolishly asserted that lycanthropes were demons or would become true fiends in time. Curing lycanthropy was a difficult challenge. Natural lycanthropes could not be cured, and an afflicted lycanthrope could be cured only if it wanted to be. The first priests of the Sovereign Host and the Silver Flame who sought a cure decided that it was impossible; only in the last decades of the Purge did a band of more moderate and moral priests prove that it could be done.
In addition to this flawed research, the then-Keeper of the Flame and leader of the Church had an agenda of his own. Jolan Sol saw the lycanthropy situation as an opportunity to strengthen the influence of the Church of the Silver Flame in Aundair. In 832 YK he proclaimed that the curse of lycanthropy corrupted the soul itself. This announcement spread fear throughout Breland and Aundair and strengthened the resolve of the armies of the Flame, who ventured west with the goal of eradicating the plague from the face of Eberron. The battle was long and brutal. Today, many assume that the lycanthropes were hunted prey, fleeing from the overwhelming force of the Church of the Silver Flame.
Little could be further from the truth. The typical werewolf is far deadlier than the average templar of the Silver Flame, and even if the soldier defeats his prey, one good bite is all it takes to transfer the curse and create a new werewolf. Evil werewolves infected entire villages and wererats took great pleasure in infecting Silver Flame Templars, imprisoning them until the curse took hold, and then sending them against their former allies. Clever lycanthropes fanned the Puritans’ paranoia toward the shifters, and these mistrustful folk then foolishly massacred hundreds of shifters before someone could prove to them that shifters did not carry the curse. While some of the shifters later fought alongside the Templars, many have never forgiven the Silver Flame—and, indeed, humanity itself—for these deaths.
As the tide slowly began to turn in the favor of the Church of the Silver Flame, the challenge became one of finding the lycanthropes hidden among human and shifter communities. Here again, many Puritans acted with overzealous aggression, harming the innocent in their desperate quest to eliminate the remaining shapeshifters. Ultimately, House Medani produced dragonshard foci that could detect lycanthropes and guide the Templars to their true foe, and this heralded the end of the Purge. By 880 YK, the Church of the Silver Flame withdrew its military forces from the Eldeen Reaches, claiming that the threat of the curse had finally been eliminated.
Today, the balance of power within the Church of the Silver Flame has shifted toward its theological moderates, and many feel shame and regret the actions of their predecessors. While the evil lycanthropes needed to be stopped, the paranoia and zealotry of the age led to the death of many innocents, particularly among the shifters of the Reaches. However, it did accomplish one goal: The Silver Flame did gain many supporters as a result of the Purge, and Aundair is the stronghold of the Puritan faction of the Church in the present day. The Puritans refuse to see the Silver Purge as anything but a triumph; most have been raised on tales of the horrors of the early ninth century YK. They feel no shame about the deaths of non-evil lycanthropes and the lycanthropes or afflicted victims who might have been cured; in the eyes of the Puritans, lycanthropes are monsters—and the duty of the Templar is to defend the innocent from evil, not to feel pity for monsters.
While the Church of Thrane no longer follows Keeper of the Flame Jolan Sol’s extremist doctrines, the Church continues to hunt shapeshifters in the present day. The present Keeper, Jaela Daran, has ordered Silver Flame Templars to subdue lycanthropes whenever possible and to accept the surrender of any lycanthrope so that the shapeshifter can be cured or exiled to the astral dominion of Lamannia. However, if a lycanthrope does not cooperate, the Templars use lethal force. This is covered under special provisions in the Code of Galifar added during the Purge; the Templars of the Church are authorized to defend the people of the Five Nations against supernatural threats, and an afflicted lycanthrope who willfully maintains his condition is seen as intentionally endangering others. The Puritans of Aundair are infamous for ignoring Jaela Daran’s edicts, and most Aundairian templars show no mercy when dealing with lycanthropes.
While the Cardinals and the Keeper of the Flame maintain that lycanthropy is a threat, rumors have spread regarding exceptional lycanthropes who have been allowed to remain on Eberron. Some say that the Church captured a werebear who had been fighting aberrations in the Eldeen Reaches, and that the Keeper of the Flame released him into the wild after hearing his tale. Some Aundairian Puritans spread gossip that declares that Jaela Daran herself is a lycanthrope; if the tales hold true, it could be that the Silver Flame selected her to attempt to heal the damage done in its name. Between the prejudice of the common people of the Five Nations and the need to settle things with the Church of the Silver Flame, Khorvaire remains a challenging place for lycanthropes.
845 YK
Eberron’s cosmology is complex, subtle, and at times an utterly mystifying tapestry of relationships. Planar connections wax and wane in a dance so intricate that only the most rigorous academic can accurately track and predict its effect on the world—and not without complicated equations that would frustrate some archmages. Such complexity is bound to breed surprises. In 845 YK the established order of the universe was challenged by the troubled genius, Belental Heirm. A professor of planar research in the fledgling offshoot of Morgrave University established in Wroat, Heirm made a reputation for his complete and utter understanding of the thirteen planar paths and their cryptic movements. In his life’s work, the Deviant Celestia, Heirm advanced the theory that the planes’ sometimes erratic movement could only be adequately explained by the existence of numerous rogue planes lying just outside the path of the main thirteen in a place he called the Deeper Astral.
According to Heirm’s controversial theory, these rogue planes interact with the main thirteen, and their courses tug and pull the fabric of the Astral Sea, explaining most of the cosmic complexity observed for centuries. He further theorized that while many rogue planes typically do not directly interact with Eberron, on rare occasions some could, and even proposed that one of these rogue planes may float close enough to Eberron to become conterminous. While the precision of Heirm’s mathematical model was remarkable, other academics scoffed at the more eccentric theories proposed in the Deviant Celestia. Many could not accept the mind-numbing complexity of Heirm’s cosmos, while even others could not accept the source of the theory An utter libertine, prone to fits of rage and melancholy, many believed the Belental Heirm was insane at best, and possessed at worse. When he was implicated in a plot to assassinate King Jarot of Galifar that was perpetrated by a Cult of the Dragon Below, the fears of fiendish possession seemed confirmed. Heirm died a traitor’s death at the hands of Galifaran royal agents. Since his disgrace, the Deviant Celestia and his other works have been ignored by all but a small secretive group of students and professors in Wroat and Sharn.
873 YK
The first confirmed sighting of Blackroot—Mordain the Fleshweaver’s new tower—occurred in 873 YK. In the heat of the Silver Purge against the lycanthropes of Khorvaire, a troop of Aundairian templars of the Silver Flame pursued a few werewolves far to the south of modern Aundair. Weeks later, another patrol encountered a lone survivor, half-mad and delirious. He spoke of a tower “with blackened, leathery walls, twisted as the limb of a dragon reaching up to grasp the sun.” The Aundairian soldier could not account for his companions, and his own condition was a testimony to the horrors he had seen. His upper torso had been fused to the lower body of what was posthumously confirmed to be a werewolf. His mental state quickly deteriorated and he soon died of self-inflicted wounds.
Blackroot’s location in what is now Droaam has long since been confirmed, though the tower is shielded from both scrying and divination. Virtuous champions have set out to destroy the foul wizard and his works. Emissaries from the Five Nations sought his aid in the Last War, and mages have dreamed of stealing his secrets. However, few gazed on the face of Mordain and return unchanged.
Blackroot is surrounded by a twisted, warped land that the gnolls of Droaam call Khresht Rhyyl in the Abyssal tongue, “the Forest of Flesh.” Early in his tenure in Blackroot, Mordain released horrid aberrant creatures called skinweavers into the woods. These beasts weave webs, much as spiders do, but instead of producing silk, skinweavers craft their nests using the recycled flesh of their victims, stretching entrails, strands of muscle, and flayed skin between trunk and bough. Many of these are long abandoned, like cobwebs drifting in the wind. Nonetheless, gnawed bones and glistening strands of flesh are a common sight in the forest, and they serve as a clear warning to turn back.
The woods of Khresht Rhyyl are unusually dense and humid for Droaam, which is one more sign of the power Mordain holds over this region. The canopy above remains dense throughout the year, and even at high noon, only dim light makes its way to the forest floor. Anyone knowledgeable in such matters as herbalism can recognize certain plants that are usually found only underground; this includes phosphorescent fungi that create paths of light snaking through the darkness. Other plants are unknown beyond the forest. These include potent hallucinogens; bloodvines, which produce human blood in place of sap; banshee’s boughs, trees that howl in agony when disturbed in any way; and many others. The ghoul’s rose produces the stench of rotting flesh to attract insects, and the deceptively beautiful stormflower can release blasts of lightning on the unwary.
The creatures of the region are as diverse and dangerous as the plant life. Some are aberrations, though most are bestial creatures unique to the area as opposed to being servants of Xoriat or the Dragon Below. The skinweavers, which look like spiders with a human head attached, are one example of Mordain’s ingenuity, but tales speak of skinless wolves, insane elementals, and frenzied beasts formed from the combination of two or more of the creatures found elsewhere in Droaam. Adventurers might stumble upon a troll with the voice and wings of a harpy, or a hydra with a medusa’s head sprouting from each of its six necks. Rot scarabs, bloodweb spiders, and stranger insects chitter in the darkness. Vine horrors, oozes of colors never seen in the world beyond, and aberrant dryads linger just off the phosphorescent paths. The standard biological laws of nature have been shattered here. Many of these unusually predatory monsters have been fleshwarped to survive with minimal sustenance, and hunting instincts and reproductive systems have likewise been altered; some beasts reproduce at a remarkable rate needed to maintain their numbers, and others are sterile and could be exterminated by travelers. Because of this, even the most innocent creatures can pose a deadly threat. The tryyl, a rodent found in the horrific forest, is a little creature possessing the adorable traits of both the rabbit and the hamster. But a tryyl also has poisonous flesh, a venomous bite, and an uncanny reproduction rate held in check by its diet within the forest. Should a few of these creatures be brought to Breland or Aundair, they could quickly spread across the land and become an environmental menace.
And finally, at the heart of the Forest of Flesh, lies a tall tower made of what appears to be the flesh of a black dragon, a tower that will actually bleed if cut or slashed. Somewhere within lies the Fleshweaver himself, and whether he will greet any visitors as guests or more raw material for his insane experiments is truly a gamble. Mordain is reclusive and fully concentrated on his research…he leaves the Daughters of Sora Kell alone and they do likewise. However, some rumors coming out of Droaam whisper that the Fleshweaver’s true goal is to find a way to reopen the portal to Xoriat, the Plane of Madness…
878 YK
In 878 YK House Deneith began to provide its clients among the Five Nations with goblin mercenaries drawn from the Darguun region of Cyre. These mercenaries include members of the remaining Dhakaani clans, who would come to see the Last War as an opportunity to begin the restoration of the ancient Dhakaani civilization. Goblin mercenaries soon become a status symbol among the Galifaran nobility and they became a common sight among the personal guards of the greatest nobles and dragonmarked heirs.
890 YK
In 890 YK the Storm Lord Castal Omaren attempted to eliminate the other Storm Lords and seize sole control of the city of Stormreach in northern Xen’drik. The coup d’etat failed because Castal Omaren massively underestimated the Stormreach Guard’s loyalty to the dwarven Storm Lord Yorrik Amanatu, who used the Guard to stop the coup. After Castal Omaren was killed by Amanatu in putting down the coup, the Omaren family was allowed to retain its lordship over the city but was forced to make major reparations to the other four Storm Lords and to operate under a set of strict penalties which remain in effect to this day. However, the new Omaren lord and his descendants were deeply subservient to the rest of the Storm Lords’ council.
894 YK
King Jarot ir’Wynarn, the last ruler of Galifar, died in 894 YK. PrinceThalin of Thrane, Prince Kaius of Karrnath, and Princess Wroann of Breland unexpectedly rejected the rightful succession of Princess Mishann, the governor of Cyre and the eldest child of King Jarot, to the throne of Galifar. In contrast, Prince Wrogar of Aundair backed his sister’s claim to theGalifaran Crown because of a promise that King Jarot exacted from his son on his deathbed, and theLast War began as Thrane, Karrnath, and Breland mobilized their relatively small militaries to prevent Mishann from being crowned Queen of Galifar at Thronehold. When it became clear that no negotiated end to the crisis was possible, each of the contending princes declared themselves to be the king or queen of their respective nations. Thronehold was abandoned and the Kingdom of Galifar dissolved into the vicious civil strife that will last for more than a century and will be known as the Last War (see a more complete exploration of the war below)
896 YK
The Knightly Order of the Emerald Claw was established two years after the start of the Last War at the behest of the Lich Queen Vol(and named after her father, the green dragon known as the Emerald Claw). The order was intended to serve as the military arm of the Blood of Vol religion that had already managed to gain enormous influence in Karrnath at the expense of the faith of the Sovereign Host. The Knights of the Emerald Claw often went on missions during the Last War against Karrnath’s enemies in Thrane and Aundair and became especially hated by the Thranes and the Templars of the Church of the Silver Flame for their use of Karrnathi undead and other intelligent undead loyal to the Blood of Vol. For Karrnath’s enemies, there came to be little separation in their minds between the Emerald Claw and the Karrnathi Crown, as the Order of the Emerald Claw’s actual ties as the military arm of the Blood of Vol was unknown to any outside the highest levels of the organization and the order was made up overwhelmingly of noble-born Karrns who were converts to the Blood of Vol. King Kaius I, desperate to shore up his nation’s defenses during the Last War, agreed to give prominent positions in his kingdom to the leaders of the Order of the Emerald Claw.
897 YK
Kaius ir’Wynarn, King Kaius I of Karrnath, was turned into a vampire by the Lich Queen Vol in 897 YK as part of the price she required for her aid in preventing Karrnath’s fall to its enemies in the opening years of the Last War. When the Last War was in full swing, Kaius I was approached by priests of the Blood of Vol. These priests promised to aid Karrnath against its enemies, provided Kaius agreed to a few “minor” considerations. With Cyre and Thrane pounding on his borders, an outbreak of plague and famine that weakened his population and a breakdown in diplomatic relations that left Karrnath temporarily without allies, Kaius agreed to whatever terms the priests had—so long as he was provided with the means to repel the invaders.
First, the priests worked with Kaius’ own court wizards to perfect the process for creating elite zombie and skeleton troops to bolster Karrnath’s forces. With the addition of armor and weapons, as well as a slight increase in power, these undead were stronger and more formidable than the average mindless walking corpse. Second, the priests provided an elite fighting force dedicated to both Vol and Kaius—the Order of the Emerald Claw. “The Order will help you here and in distant lands, where its agents will foster unrest and revolution in the homes of your enemies,” the priests explained. Both of these gifts gave an immediate boost to Karrnath’s beleaguered forces, and the order took credit for the internal strife that soon blossomed in Cyre, Breland, and Aundair, saving Karrnath from total conquest by Aundair and Cyre in the first decade of the conflict.
When Vol, the ancient half-dragon lich at the heart of the Blood of Vol cult, appeared before Kaius I to collect her “considerations” for the aid her priests provided him, he had no choice but to submit. In addition to allowing the cult to establish temples and bases throughout Karrnath, Vol demanded that Kaius partake in the Blood of Vol’s Sacrament of Blood. Instead of the usual harmless ceremony, Vol invoked an ancient Qabalrin necromantic incantation that turned Kaius into a vampire lord.
Rather than becoming a compliant undead thrall of the Lich Queen, however, Kaius I fought to keep his independence. Furious that the vampire refused to be humbled, Vol eventually forced the issue by triggering Kaius’ bloodlust (something he had been struggling to control since his transformation). When the crimson haze cleared, Kaius discovered that he had attacked and killed his beloved wife and queen. The helpless monarch saw his nation increasingly fall under the Lich Queen’s sway even as Karrnath’s military was able to hold its own once more due to the assistance of the Knights of the Emerald Claw and the development of the new Karrnathi undead troops.
910 YK
King Kaius II ascended to the throne of Karrnath after his father, Kaius I, faked his own death to go in search of a way to free his kingdom from the grip of the Blood of Vol. Kaius I had learned that the Lich Queen, Erandis d’Vol, intended to use the chaos of the Last War to turn Karrnath into her own private domain from which she could carry out her plans for genocidal revenge against the elves of Aerenal and the dragons of Argonessen.
914 YK
The dwarves of the Mror Holds declared their nation’s independence from Karrnath in 914 YK, which was viewed as a terrible stab in the back of the human kingdom in the Karrn capital city of Korth. Relations between the Holds and Karrnath remained frosty and tense for decades afterward. The independence of the Holds lead the Aurum, a secret dwarven organization dedicated to controlling the wealth and commerce of Khorvarien society, to begin recruiting members from across the continent.
914 YK
King Thalin of Thrane died in 914 YK and the Church of the Silver Flame seized control of the kingdom at the insistence of the Thrane populace, who had been driven into a nationalistic and religious furor by their late king’s dream of using the Last War to spread the faith of the Silver Flame across the entire continent of Khorvaire. The Church reluctantly established a theocracy in Flamekeep, the capital city of Thrane, ruled by the Keeper of the Flame and the Diet of Cardinals.
918 YK
Unknown saboteurs destroyed the famed Glass Tower of Sharn, once the largest tower ever erected in Khorvaire’s greatest city. While Sharn was never directly besieged during the Last War, sabotage by one of Breland’s enemies was a constant threat. The most devastating event of the war for Sharn occurred on Olarune 9, 918 YK. A team of wizards working for an unknown patron dispelled the enchantments supporting the Glass Tower, one of the city’s oldest floating citadels, which crashed to the ground, killing thousands of people both in the tower and below it on the city’s streets.
928 YK
Duke Ven ir’Kesslan lead settlers from his home nation of Cyre to southeastern Khorvaire to forge the new Kingdom of Q’barra in this year. For centuries, some people put their loyalty to Galifar above their ties to any single nation. Such folk were traumatized when the Last War shattered the kingdom they loved. Among these Galifaran patriots was Duke Ven ir’Kesslan of Cyre, who petitioned for and was granted rights to settle the land east of the Endworld Mountains by the king of Cyre. Here, in the jungle-covered peninsula called Q’barra by the Lhazaar pirates who first discovered it, the Cyran noble envisioned a land where those who refused to fight their brothers and sisters could start a new kingdom based on the frayed ideals of ancient Galifar.
The Cyran settlers (joined by similar groups of Galifaran patriots from all of the Five Nations) formed a huge flotilla of ships of all sizes and headed out to follow the coast to any hospitable bay in the Q’barran jungle. Drawn from all of the Five Nations, the members of ir’Kesslan’s expedition included scholars, lesser nobles, clergy, and common folk who opposed the war and saw hope in the duke's plan. After a long and arduous sea journey, made even more treacherous due to piracy and war, only four out of every six vessels that sailed from Cyre reached Adder Bay, where the exiles established the town that would become Adderport and eventually, their capital city of Newthrone. Impressed by the beauty of the land and trusting the mountains and seas to shield them from the ravages of war, ir’Kesslan, who became King Ven of Q’barra, vowed his new nation would remain true to the ideals that had held the Kingdom of Galifar together for almost a thousand years.
Over time, the region attracted new settlers—idealists who shared ir’Kesslan’s beliefs and refugees who sought a safe haven from the ferocity of the war. Some of these later arrivals included outlaws, war criminals, defeated troops, and, most recently, displaced Cyrans fleeing the destruction of their kingdom on the Day of Mourning. Not all these disparate groups get along. Added to these tensions, the settlers must deal with the dangers that lurk in the jungle itself. King Ven had seen no signs of humans—indeed, the Lhazaar pirates considered the peninsula cursed—and assumed Q’barra was uninhabited. He was mistaken.
More than ten thousand years ago, the Dhakaani Empire drove the lizardfolk of the TalentaPlains across the Endworld Mountains and into the swamps and jungles of Q’barra. The lizardfolk dwelt mainly in northern Q’barra, along the Torva River, and in the Basura Swamp. As the settlers spread throughout the Adder Valley and into the jungle beyond, they began unwittingly despoiling the lizardfolk’s holy sites. The Poison Dusk tribe of pygmy lizardfolk took to ambushing settlers, and in 970 YK the Cold Sun tribes of common lizardfolk launched an assault on the human invaders. The settlers, taken by surprise, suffered serious casualties in the first months of the conflict. Ultimately the magical skills and superior weapons of the humans turned the tide, and the lizardfolk retreated to the northern swamps.
Though truces have been struck and full-scale war avoided, the settlers of Q’barra must still contend with hostile lizardfolk, Valenar warbands, Lhazaar pirate raiders, and kobold marauders from the Endworld Mountains. Recent discoveries of large deposits of Eberron dragonshards have brought House Tharashk and a swarm of prospectors to the region. Tensions among the various groups of settlers continue to run high, especially with the arrival of large numbers of Cyran refugees. Aside from the lizardfolk and kobolds, Q’barra is home to all manner of thunder lizards, dire and horrid reptiles, and giant and venomous vermin. Finally, a dark and ancient force bides its time in the deep jungle, waiting for its moment to strike, for Q’barra is the home of Haka’torvhak—one of the great citadels of the fiends from the Age of Demons and the site of a massive battle between the fiends and the dragons. In the end, the most powerful fiends were bound in the fires deep beneath the city and draconic guardians were left to watch over the place for eternity. The current guardian, the half-fiend black dragon Rhashaak, has been corrupted by the fiendish emanations of his post but remains bound to his duty, though he is determined to use the Poison Dusk pygmy lizardfolk who worship him as a god to ascend to true divinity.
946 YK
In this year, the city of Stormreach in Xen’drik came under attack by the Battalion of the Basalt Towers, a powerful alliance of fire giants. In addition to physical force, the giants employed an artifact that called down arcane meteor swarms upon the city; some of the craters from this conflict can still be seen today. In a curious turn of events, the giants of Rushemé joined with the Stormreach Guard and the forces of the dragonmarked houses in the city to turn back this assault, not out of a desire to protect Stormreach’s inhabitants but to keep the city out of the Battalion’s hands. The power of the Basalt Towers was broken, but some of the giants survived and recent reports (998 YK) from the interior of Xen’drik suggest that they have rebuilt their forces.
956 YK
In the midst of the Last War in 956 YK, elven Valaes Tairn mercenaries from Aerenal annexed southern Cyre, the territory of the nation they had been serving in the great conflict, and declared the independence of the new elf kingdom of Valenar.
Ten thousand years ago, the elves of Aerenal had established a settlement on the southern shore of Khorvaire. Initially, the hobgoblin emperor of Dhakaan was pleased to have a center for trade with the elves, but over the course of the next century this relationship soured and turned to war. The elves could not match the numbers of the Dhakaani goblins and were driven back to Arenal (see above). War between the empires continued sporadically over the next few centuries. Ultimately, both hobgoblin and elf agreed to respect their then-current borders—the elves would hold their island-continent, and the hobgoblins would continue to dominate the mainland of Khorvaire. Millennia passed, and the hobgoblins’ Empire of Dhakaan crumbled to dust after the Daelkyr War. By the time of King Jarot of Galifar, the land once contested by hobgoblins and elves was part of the realm of Cyre. Much of the region was sparsely populated, with the occasional human village, migrating halfling tribe, and a handful of hobgoblin clans hiding in the shadows. When the Last War began, Cyre came under attack from all sides and quickly sought allies.
While the Undying Court of Aerenal had no interest in returning to Khorvaire, the Cyrans drew the interest of the Valaes Tairn. These militant elves had long sought an opportunity to test their blades in epic battle, and they were only too willing to enter the fray of the Last War. For decades the elves fought on the side of Cyre, battling Talentan warbands, hobgoblin mercenaries, and the forces of Breland and Karrnath. They fought for the love of battle and gold, not loyalty to Cyre. Then, in956 YK, the elves took action that surprised the Cyrans and the other Five Nations. War Leader Shaeras Vadallia proclaimed that his people had ties to the land from a time before human feet touched the soil of Khorvaire and that his soldiers had restored those ties with spilled blood. Vadallia declared himself High King of the new elven nation of Valenar, and his warriors have been fortifying their position and slowly expanding their borders ever since, as well as forging an alliance with House Lyrandar.
The Valenar elves have no interest in peace, but they participated in the diplomatic talks at Thronehold that ended the Last War to gauge the measure of their enemies and to gain acceptance in the human courts. Today, Valenar warbands continue to clash with Karrnathi forces, and raids into the Talenta Plains and Q’barra occur on a regular basis. Now that the Last War has come to an end, it remains to be seen whether the Treaty of Thronehold can end this elven aggression.
958 YK
The Eldeen Reaches declared themselves an independent nation under the protection of the druidic order known as the Wardens of the Wood and the guidance of the Great Druid Oalian in 958 YK as a result of the Last War. The Eldeen Reaches covered the northwestern region of Khorvaire to the Shadowcrag Mountains. The eastern Reaches featured fertile plains and rolling hills, but dense forests covered the majority of the nation. These forests housed some of the most primeval trees on the continent, ancient growths that had survived the rise and fall of empires and witnessed the arrival of humans on the shores of Khorvaire. The forces of arcane and primal magic permeated these woods, and strange beasts and mischievous fey roamed the land. Many dangers also lurked in the deep woods, and the humanoids who made their homes in these forests did not always take kindly to visitors.
In the Age of Monsters, when the goblins forged their empire across Khorvaire, the Eldeen Reaches were the domain of orc clans who sought to live in harmony with the wilderness. The orcs were devastated and decimated in the war against the daelkyr. As a result of that terrible conflict, the forest was seeded with aberrations and horrid creatures formed by the sinister fleshshapers from Xoriat.
As the human nations that would one day join together as the Kingdom of Galifar took shape, the Eldeen Reaches were largely left alone thanks to tales of the “haunted forest” west of the Wynarn River, filled with monsters and demons. Still, over the course of centuries, humans and members of the other common races slowly drifted into the Reaches. Some came in search of land and opportunity. Hunters and warriors devoted to the Church of the Silver Flame came to battle evil magical beasts, eventually driving the more dangerous creatures like the lycanthropes into the deep woods. Others were drawn to the woods, called by a primal force they could not name. Deep in the ancient forest, those who heard the call met with the Great Druid Oalian, a sentient great pine who had watched over the woods for more than four thousand years. He taught those who heard his call the ways of the wild, how to access the primal power of the Dragon Between and the duties of the ancient Gatekeepers. His teachings inspired all the druid sects that eventually grew up in the Reaches.
Centuries passed. The druidic society of the Reaches grew and spread throughout the forest, which came to be known as the Towering Wood. The younger races brought their own customs and perspectives to the Reaches, of course, and Oalian’s teachings had already begun to diverge from those of the original orcish Gatekeepers. In time, the druids fragmented into a dozen sects. Meanwhile, the nation of Aundair claimed the fertile plains along the eastern edge of the woods, and Aundairian farmers and settlers spread across the river. Despite minor conflicts between shifter and human settler, human settler, and druid, and even among the druids themselves, the region prospered.
The Last War proved to be the undoing of the old order. As the conflict intensified, Aundair pulled its forces back to protect its heartland and eastern borders from Karrnath and Thrane, leaving the Eldeen Reaches to fend for themselves. Bandit lords sponsored by Karrnath and the Lhazaar Principalities harried the farms west of the Wynarn River, using the forest as a base and staging ground. In the south, Brelish troops crossed the Silver Lake to occupy the towns of Sylbaran, Greenblade, and Erlaskar. As things went from bad to worse, an army of druids and rangers emerged from the forest. In 956 YK, the Wardens of the Wood rallied the farmers and peasants of the Reaches, crushing the bandit army before it knew what was happening. With order restored in the north, the Wardens turned their attention to the south. In 959 YK, they finally succeeded in driving the Brelish forces back across the lake.
Angry at the Aundairian Crown for abandoning them, the people of the Reaches swore allegiance to the Great Druid, breaking all political ties with the lords of Aundair and resisting several Aundairian attempts to regain control of the forest lands. Since 958 YK, the people of the Eldeen Reaches—now proudly called Reachers—have considered themselves to be part of an independent nation, and they were finally recognized as such with the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold that ended the Last War. It remains to be seen whether Aundair will try to reclaim its old western territories now that the Last War has ended.
961 YK
Boranel ir’Wynarn became the king of Breland in 961 YK. A direct descendant of the independent Kingdom of Breland’s first leader, Queen Wroann, the daughter of King Jarot, the last ruler of Galifar, Boranel carried on the high-minded traditions of both Galifar and the Brelish Crown. While ruled as a monarchy, Breland also had a partially-elected parliament that worked alongside the king and the royal court to govern the country, a tradition that had been formally begun by Queen Wroann and expanded by Boranel early in his reign. Under the unwritten Brelish constitution that developed soon after the start of the Last War, the Brelish Parliament made the laws in Breland and the Crown enforced them. The Crown also conducted all business related to foreign affairs and the security of the realm, sometimes informing Parliament, more often not.
The people of Breland loved their king, his vassal lords respected and even revered him, and Parliament saw him as fair and just. It is said that the people of Breland will follow King Boranel anywhere, and this has been demonstrated many times in the course of his thirty-seven-year reign. As Boranel has gotten older, concerns revolving around the succession have begun to manifest. One plan mostly discussed quietly and in secret among certain noble members of the Parliament, suggested that the nation abandon the monarchy after Boranel’s death and turn over more power and authority to Parliament. Another plan hopes that one of Boranel’s children will fill the vacuum and become a leader in the same vein as his or her father. So far, none of the heirs has demonstrated more than a passing ability at ruling the nation.
To further spread the tenets of democracy, Breland regularly holds town meetings throughout the realm. At these meetings, the common folk is recognized and allowed to state their opinions for the Crown and Parliament to hear.
The king ruled from the family’s ancestral home in Breland’s capital city of Wroat, the halls of the mighty Brokenblade Castle. Named after the events surrounding the legendary King Galifar I’sconquest of the nation, when (as the story goes) his sword blade shattered in the battle but he managed to win the day anyway, Brokenblade Castle rises alongside the Howling River, near where it empties into and merges with the Dagger River. Parliament Hall, the meeting place and offices of the elected legislators of Breland, is located but a short walk from the battlements of Brokenblade Castle. Boranel also maintained working residences in Sharn and Starilaskur, and kept Castle Arakhain, in the western part of the country, as a retreat.
The Brelish Parliament consisted of both elected legislators and hereditary lords. The citizens of Breland elected their commoner legislators every two years. These elected lawmakers, chosen by popular vote (one from each village or town, two from each city, and three each from the metropolises of Sharn and Wroat), were sent to the capital to participate in all parliamentary proceedings. The noble legislators gained their seats in Parliament based on the status of their families; each recognized Brelish noble family held one seat in Parliament. Each year, the recognized head of the family appointed a relative to parliamentary duty. In many cases, the yearly appointment was symbolic, and each family has one representative who serves a year in and year out. Twenty-seven noble families serve the Crown of Breland as of 998 YK.
962 YK
Zilargo, the nation of gnomes, was long neutral in the Last War due to its status as an autonomous principality of the Kingdom of Galifar, but formally aligned itself with Breland during the Last War in 962 YK. The gnomes’ powerful intelligence network, skilled magewrights, and unique arcane elemental-binding techniques were key strategic assets for the Brelish in the war’s last years.
The gnomes of Khorvaire had lived in the area known as Zilargo for thousands of years. Situated between the Howling Peaks and the Seawall Mountains, the gnomes thrived despite incursions by and conflicts with goblins, kobolds, and humans. They had always managed to maintain their independence, winning battles with words that they could never win with swords. After King Galifar I established his kingdom, he eventually set his sights on Zilargo. The gnomes me this military forces in the valley north of Dragonroost and immediately surrendered. During the negotiations, the gnomes became an independent province within the kingdom. King Galifar left in victory, and the gnomes secured a safe place in the new human empire—all without spilling a drop of blood. Relying on their innate wisdom and cunning, along with elemental-bound items and illusions, the gnomes of Khorvaire have always been surprisingly dangerous opponents.
During the Last War, Zilargo spent most of the conflict as a neutral observer before aligning with Breland in 962 YK. From that point on, the gnomes provided intelligence and elemental-bound weapons and vehicles to Breland while avoiding most combat. As a result, Zilargo emerged from the Last War stronger than ever, and Breland owes the gnomes a great debt for the services they rendered—and the gnomes always collect on their debts.
965 YK
House Cannith finally perfected the creation of modern-era warforged in 965 YK, giving birth to a new generation of living constructs designed to fight the Last War using lore recovered from quori ruins in Xen’drik decades before. Built as mindless machines to fight in the Last War, the warforged had developed sentience as a side effect of the arcane experiments that sought to make them the ultimate weapons of destruction. With each successive model that emerged from the creation forges of House Cannith, the warforged evolved until they became a new kind of intelligent beings—living, free-willed constructs. Warforged are renowned for their combat prowess, their size, and their single-minded focus. They make steadfast allies and fearsome enemies. Earlier warforged models had been true constructs, such as the warforged titan used for decades before the creation of the first true living warforged thirty-three years ago.
Before the death of King Jarot and the start of the Last War, the master crafters of House Cannith had turned their creation forges to the task of churning out new constructs for a new age. Constructs designed for labor and industry soon led to experiments with models developed for exploration and defense. When King Jarot saw the possibilities inherent in the work of House Cannith, he began to outline his plan to protect Galifar from the threats he imagined were gathering all around the kingdom. For an unknown reason, King Jarot was growing more and more paranoid about the dangers he believed were posed to Galifar by the monster hordes of the western reaches, the mysterious elves of Aerenal, the Seren barbarians of Argonnessen, and others from beyond his realm. At the king’s urging, House Cannith began to experiment with constructs designed for war.
Merrix d’Cannith, one of the lords of the house, developed the first version of the warforged. It was a remarkable achievement, but Merrix believed he could create an even better soldier. WhenKing Jarot died and his scions divided the kingdom, each faction had a complement of warforged fighters devoted to its cause. By the second decade of the conflict, Merrix had introduced near-sentience into his created warriors. It was Merrix’s son, Aarren d’Cannith, who made the breakthrough that resulted in the warforged becoming truly living, self-aware constructs. Aarren had studied documents recovered from an expedition to the continent of Xen’drik for House Cannith undertaken by his ancestor Kedran d’Cannith decades before. Kedran had discovered the secrets of creating true warforged among the quori ruins left behind from the Quori-Giant War of over forty millennia before. Aarren d’Cannith put this knowledge to use and the first warforged that were truly alive and sentient emerged from the Cannith creation forges thirty-three years ago.
House Cannith sold warforged fighters throughout the last thirty years of the war to anyone who could afford them. Breland, Thrane, and Cyre boasted the largest armies of warforged on the continent, and most of the various competing factions had at least a token force of warforged fighting for them. By the final years of the war, the warforged had become thoroughly associated with the ever-escalating conflict.
The warforged were made to fight in the Last War, and they continue to fulfill their military purpose with distinction. They fight fiercely and usually without remorse, displaying adaptability impossible for mindless arcane constructs. After the war ended, the warforged sought to adapt to life in this era of relative peace. Some settled easily into new roles as artisans or laborers, while others wandered as adventurers or even continued fighting the Last War despite the return of peace. Warforged appear as massive humanoids molded from a composite of materials—obsidian, iron, stone, darkwood, silver, and organic material—though they move with a surprising grace and flexibility. Flexible plates connected by fibrous bundles make up the body of a warforged, topped by a mostly featureless head. Warforged have no physical distinction of gender; all of them have a basically muscular, sexless body shape. In personality, some warforged seem more masculine or feminine, but different people might judge the same warforged in different ways. The warforged themselves seem unconcerned with matters of gender. They do not age naturally, though their bodies do decay slowly even as their minds improve through learning and experience. Unique among constructs, warforged have learned to modify their bodies through magic and training. Many warforged are adorned with heavier metal plates than those their creator originally endowed them with. This customized armor, built-in weaponry, and other enhancements to their physical form help to differentiate one warforged from another.
As the warforged strive to find a place in society for themselves after the Last War, they simultaneously struggle to find ways to relate to the races that created them. In general, the humanoid races of Khorvaire regard the warforged as an unpleasant reminder of the brutality of the Last War and avoid dealing with them when possible. In Thrane and Karrnath, the warforged are still seen as the property of the military forces that paid to have them built, and most warforged in those nations serve as slave labor, often used to repair buildings and roads damaged or destroyed in the war. Throughout the rest of Khorvaire, they have freedom but sometimes find themselves the victims of discrimination, hard-pressed to find work or any kind of acceptance. Most warforged, not being particularly emotional creatures, accept their struggles and servitude with equanimity, but others see them with resentment against all other races as well as those warforged whose only desire is to please their “masters.”
Warforged originated in Cyre at House Cannith’s primary forgehold of Whitehearth in the city of Eston before its destruction during the Day of Mourning and have no homeland of their own. Most of them have dispersed across Khorvaire, laboring as indentured servants in the cities of Korth, Atur, and Flamekeep, or struggling to find work and acceptance in Sharn or Korranberg. A few congregate in the Mournland, attempting to build a new warforged society free from the prejudice and mistrust of the older races.
Just as most warforged are not inclined to align themselves with any particular moral or ethical philosophy, few show much interest in religion. Some warforged have found a kind of answer to the questions of their existence by taking up the cause of one religion or another, but these remain a small (if rather vocal) minority among their kind. A larger number gravitate to a messianic figure called the Lord of Blades. This powerful leader gathered a cult-like following of disaffected warforged by preaching a return to the Mournland and rebellion against the “flesh-born” races.
Warforged speak Common since they were designed to communicate with their (mostly human) creators and owners. Warforged do not name themselves and only recently have begun to understand the need of other races to have names for everything. Many accept whatever names others see fit to give them, and warforged traveling with humans often are referred to by nicknames. Some warforged, however, have come to see having a name as a defining moment of their new existence, and thus search long and hard for the perfect name to attach to themselves.
969 YK
The hobgoblin war leader Lhesh Haruuc lead a hobgoblin rebellion against the humans of Cyre, and the nation of Darguun was born in 969 YK. In ages past, hobgoblins and the other goblin races had controlled Khorvaire. Over the course of thousands of years, a host of goblin nations rose and fell. The greatest civilization of this age, the hobgoblin-ruled Empire of Dhakaan, bred goblins and bugbears as slaves and warriors. The ancient empire has returned in the present day, in a weaker, less influential form, in the new nation of Darguun.
Darguun, carved from what was once the southwestern borderlands of the Kingdom of Cyre, contained a variety of environs. Nestled to the east of the Seawall Mountains, Darguun was composed of fertile plains to the north, a dense tropical forest to the east, and a vast moor to the south. The mighty Ghaal River emptied into the Kraken Bay and literally divided the nation in half, separating the battlefields of the Last War from the unexplored reaches of the southern shore.
For thousands of years, the barbaric goblin clans lurked in the shadows, hiding deep within the Seawall Mountains and venturing out only to engage in an occasional raid on Brelish or Cyran settlements. It was human greed that finally brought them back into the light. Lord Cail d’Deneith led an expedition into the Seawall Mountains one hundred twenty years ago (in 878 YK) to seek goblin recruits for his house’s mercenary armies. He discovered more than a dozen tribes and clans scattered throughout the mountains. With clever words and a lot of gold, Cail won the trust of a few of the hobgoblin chieftains. A host of hobgoblin warriors and their goblin slaves returned to Breland with Cail. These savage hobgoblins were seen as a novelty; it became prestigious for wealthy nobles to employ hobgoblin guards. Then the Last War began.
Both Breland and Cyre soon turned to House Deneith to supplement their armies, and Deneith, in turn, brought ever-increasing numbers of goblins out of the mountains. House Deneith’s profits soared, but ultimately this reliance on goblin soldiers had disastrous results. After seventy years of war, tens of thousands of well-armed goblins, bugbears and hobgoblins were spread across the Cyre-Breland border. With the rise to prominence of the ambitious young hobgoblin chieftain named Haruuc, all the conditions for the creation of the nation of Darguun were in place.
A cunning tactician and charismatic leader, Haruuc realized that the human and demi-human forces in the region were no match for the combined power of the goblins. He arranged secret meetings with other chieftains, and through promises, threats, and appeals to racial loyalty he won most of the tribes to his cause. In 969 YK, the hobgoblins turned on the people they were supposed to be defending. Hundreds of humans were slain, while others fled into neighboring lands or were captured as slaves. The goblins saw such enslavement as poetic vengeance for humanity’s long mistreatment of the goblin races since their arrival on Khorvaire three millennia before. Haruuc laid claim to the area, naming it Darguun and establishing the title of the Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor —the High Warlord Haruuc of the Scarlet Blade in the Goblin tongue—for himself. Of course, as goblin lorekeepers and dirge singers pointed out to the new ruler, the Dhakaani title of Lhesh had been one that was only intended for temporary use during the days of the empire. But Haruuc aimed to make it permanent in his new nation even as he intended to try and restore a semblance of civilization to his long-neglected people.
Breland and Cyre were completely unprepared for this treachery, and neither kingdom could spare enough forces to reclaim the land, especially after Breland lost the disastrous Battle of Marguul Pass to the Darguul forces. After this disaster, the king of Breland quickly made a deal with Haruuc, offering recognition for Darguun’s independence in exchange for continued protection along the eastern front between Breland and Thrane, but warfare between the goblins and Cyre continued right up until the Day of Mourning (see below). Eager to put an end to the war, Karrnath, Aundair, and Breland formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Darguun with the Treaty of Thronehold in 996 YK. With clearly delineated borders defining the new nation, the Lhesh Haruuc swore to restrain his followers from future violence against the three human kingdoms. Thrane, however, has demonstrated disfavor with the Darguul aspect of the peace accords, and the Templars of the Church of the Silver Flame may yet seek to avenge those humans killed in the original uprising.
Darguun consisted of three regions: the Seawall Mountains, the northern plains, and the southern wilderness. Most of the nation’s population lived in the mountains and along the two major rivers, the Ghaal and the Torlaac. The nation is home to three major goblin tribes and the various clans associated with them. These tribes are the Ghaal’dar clans of the lowlands, the Heirs of Dhakaan clans who ruled the mountain depths, and the highland clans of the Marguul.
In the Seawall Mountains, most goblin tribes and clans continue to live as they have for the last few centuries. They spend most of their time fighting each other, following the law of the strong over the weak. One powerful tribe made up of the Dhakaani clans hiding deep within the mountains claimed to be the direct descendants of the rulers of the old empire, and it plotted a return to goblin glory. The Empire of Dhakaan was built on a foundation of martial skill. For thousands of years, it dominated Khorvaire, until the coming of the daelkyr. For all of their skill, the Dhakaani goblins could not stand against the might and madness of the Lords of Xoriat. By the time the Gatekeeper druids bound the daelkyr and their servants in the depths of Khyber, the goblin empire was a shadow of its former glory. Over the course of millennia it collapsed into barbarism and savagery, and by the time humans arrived on Khorvaire with the pirate-queen Lhazaar, all that was left of the empire was ruins. Or so it seemed. As the empire crumbled, a few of the greatest generals and leaders took their clans into hiding, determined to preserve the knowledge of the Dhakaani through the darkness they saw coming
With the rise of Darguun, the clans have emerged once more. If they united behind a single ruler, the Dhakaani clans could easily unseat the Lhesh Haruuc, and if they conquered Darguun, the Dhakaani could pose a threat to the other nations of Khorvaire. There is one huge obstacle—none of the clans agree who should be emperor. Who is the true heir of Dhakaan? This issue has led to endless conflicts between the modern-day Dhakaani clans that so far have kept them from posing a threat to the wider world. One of the major differences between the Dhakaani and the other goblins of Khorvaire, just as it was for the goblins of the original Dhakaani Empire, is the degree of interracial cooperation within a clan. Among the Ghaal’dar and the Marguul, the strong rule the weak. Leadership is founded on fear, and the weaker goblin races hate the stronger tyrants. Among the Heirs of Dhakaan clans, this is not the case. Each goblin species has a role to serve in society, and each embraces this role. The hobgoblins rule not through force of arms but because the goblins and bugbears respect their ability to maintain structure and discipline. The strength of the bugbears is turned against the enemies of the clan.
Even more interesting, two Dhakaani clans are formed entirely of goblins. Both are renowned for their impressive skills. The taarka’khesh (“silent wolves”) are a corps of goblin scouts trained to provide intelligence in the field during military operations; taarka’khesh scouts take rogue and ranger levels. The shaarat’khesh (“silent blades”) are an elite order of spies and assassins. The shaarat’khesh have long practiced a martial art designed to transform an unarmed goblin into a living weapon. As a result, shaarat’khesh goblins contain among their numbers both rogues and monks. By ancient tradition, the Silent Clans do not take sides in any conflict. Instead, they act as mercenaries, providing their services to all sides and fighting their brothers when they face one another on the battlefield. This reputation for complete impartiality and reliability has kept the khesh clans alive for thousands of years. The kesh clans will execute any goblin in the clan that betrays the secrets of a client. Generally speaking, one must be born into a khesh clan to learn its ways, but on rare occasions, killed goblins from other clans have gained admission to one of the Silent Clans.
Travel through the mountains of Darguun is difficult; there are few established paths, and the mountain goblins are generally hostile to members of the common races. Travelers on authorized business can obtain a banner of safe passage from tribal leaders, but most tribes do not recognize the authority of other tribes. A banner from the Lhesh Haruuc, whose stronghold is the capital city of Rhukaan Draal, provides some protection, but even it does not guarantee complete safety when traveling through the territory of the highland or Dhakaani clans. Many of the tribes keep slaves drawn from the common races, including humans and gnomes. These slaves were captives taken during the Last War, and the chieftains continue to look for new sources to refill their slave pens.
The northern plains of Darguun were once part of Cyre. Here, the goblins and hobgoblins have taken possession of cities and villages once occupied by the common races of lost Galifar. Many of the structures were devastated during the Last War and have been patched together according to goblin sensibilities. The net effect creates a society that appears ramshackle and shabby. The Lhesh Haruuc commands the lowland tribes, using kobold slaves to farm the land and harvest the food to feed his subjects. Tribal conflicts are still common, but travelers who hold a banner of safe passage from the Lhesh Haruuc are usually protected from aggression.
The southern reaches of Darguun, including the Torlaac Moor and the Khraal rainforest, are wilder and less settled than the northern portion of the nation. Most of the goblin settlements in this region can be found along the Torlaac River, with few outposts deeper in the wilderness.
Darguun is a volatile nation. The Ghaal’dar tribe makes up the majority of the population, and most of the clans in this tribe yield to the authority of the Lhesh Haruuc. They follow because they respect Haruuc’s leadership and military power. Should either of those factors change, Darguun could quickly collapse into chaos and anarchy. As it is, Haruuc has little control over the mountain tribes. The Marguul and Dhakaani clans usually ignore the high warlord’s royal edicts, and even the Ghaal’dar clans often fight one another despite Haruuc’s orders to work together. The habits created by millennia of barbarism are not so easily laid down in only one generation.
For his part, the Lhesh Haruuc wants to reshape goblin society to match the model of ancient Galifar. Haruuc wants to forge a stable realm for his descendants, but he fears that with his death the kingdom will fall victim to infighting and ambitious clan lords. He has established a great court at Rhukaan Draal, and representatives of all the clans and tribes can be found there. But despite Haruuc’s best efforts to re-introduce the trappings of civilization, military might remains the only force the goblins respect, and he frequently has to use this power to quell disputes and drive through his edicts. Each of the three goblin tribes is multiracial and consists of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears. It is not too unusual to find members of other races among the tribes. Some of these have embraced the goblin traditions and fought for a place of honor within the clans. Others are slaves, working for the benefit and amusement of their goblin masters.
The Rhukaan Taash, which means “Razor Crown” in Goblin, is the largest and most powerful of the Ghaal’dar clans and rules over the lowlands. While the clan possesses many skilled warriors, its greatest strength is its vast numbers. Individually, Rhukaan Taash warriors are no match for the soldiers of the Dhakaani clans, but collectively they make up a force that cannot easily be threatened. This clan has been loyal to the Lhesh Haruuc since the hobgoblin led the goblin revolt twenty-nine years ago, but not every member of the clan is completely content. While Haruuc has sought to consolidate his power and earn legitimacy for Darguun, many of the lesser chieftains feel that the goblins should continue to expand the nation. Some have even urged preemptive attacks on Breland and Zilargo, arguing that the humans and gnomes will one day come for them if the Rhukaan do not strike first. Such views shall undoubtedly cause trouble in the future, especially after Haruuc’s reign ends, whether he falls from power or eventually dies of old age. For now, it is just another thing for the high warlord to contend with. The Lhesh Haruuc is still firmly in control but getting older. As his strength fades and his battle prowess loses potency, his remarkable skill with words becomes increasingly instrumental in maintaining control over the tribes. In recent years, he has quietly begun looking for talented youngsters from whom he could appoint an heir, approaching the problem from the point of view of a brilliant general needing an equally skilled successor rather than as a king trying to preserve a bloodline.
Most hobgoblin mercenaries employed outside Darguun belong to the Rhukaan Taash or one of the other Ghaal’dar clans. A distinctive ring of scars encircles the head of each Rhukaan Taash warrior, just above the eyes. This identifying mark is the result of painful initiation rituals each warrior goes through to prove his worth and readiness for adulthood.
The Kech Shaarat or Bladebearers clan, named for a powerful artifact in their possession, is the largest of the Dhakaani clans. For thousands of years the Dhakaani clans have isolated themselves from the rest of the world, but they see the rise of Darguun as the first sign of a restored DhakaaniEmpire. Now the clans have emerged from their fortress caverns and are partaking in a brutal struggle to determine the rightful heir to the imperial throne. Since these battles are confined to the depths of the Seawall Mountains and do not involve outsiders, the Lhesh Haruuc has paid little attention to the conflict. But if one leader can win the loyalty of all the Dhakaani clans, he could challenge Haruuc for control of the Darguun nation. Chieftain Ruus Dhakaan seeks to prove his right to rule through conquest. Kech Shaarat has already absorbed two smaller clans, and it seems only a matter of time until Ruus has all of the Dhakaani forces under his control. He outwardly bows to the Lhesh Haruuc’s authority, but in his mountain lair considers his own word to be more powerful than that of the lowland pretender. His soldiers rarely leave the Seawall Mountains; they can be identified by sword-shaped brands on one or both forearms.
The Kech Volaar or Wordbearers clan has gone to great lengths to preserve the lore of the Dhakaani Empire. Though Kech Volaar is one of the smallest Dhakaani clans, its armorers and stonemasons are unmatched in all of Darguun. This great skill has allowed their fortifications to hold against the Kech Shaarat and other aggressive clans. Led by Tuura Dhakaan, the strongest dirge singer the clans have seen in over a thousand years, the Wordbearers keep the memory of the ancient goblin empire alive. Instead of seeking conquest through military victory, Tuura intends to prove her right to rule like Jhazaal Dhakaan by gathering the lost artifacts of the ancient goblin empire—both to serve as a symbol and to provide her with enough magical power to overcome her foes. Kurac Thaar, the clan’s warlord, is as fanatically devoted to Tuura and her vision of the restored empire as the rest of the Kech Volaar.
Kech Volaar goblins often venture beyond Darguun in search of Dhakaani ruins, but they do not work as mercenaries. They rarely interact with other races except in the pursuit of a mission. Symbols depicting important events are often tattooed on members of the clan; those who read Goblin can learn much about an individual through the study of these markings.
The Marguul tribe consists of an alliance of bugbear-led clans that live in the highlands of the Seawall Mountains. For the most part, the Marguul clans pay homage to the court of Rhukaan Draal, benefiting from Darguun’s ties to the outside world. However, one Marguul clan, the Kalkor, refused to bow to the hobgoblin Haruuc. Led by the bugbear chieftain Mograath, Kalkor is not the largest Marguul clan, but its members are easily the most vicious. Dedicated followers of the Mockery, Mograath and his warriors represent a threat to anyone who travels through the Seawall Mountains— especially those carrying a banner of safe passage from the Lhesh Haruuc. Gruesome facial scars displayed in a fang pattern distinguish members of the Kalkor clan.
972 YK
The elven dragonmarked House Thuranni split off from House Phiarlan in 972 YK even as they both shared the Mark of Shadow, at last creating the thirteen dragonmarked houses that had long been prophesized would come into existence. Before the start of the Last War, House Phiarlan had a comfortable working relationship with House Wynarn, the royal dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Galifar. The house helped the Royals to maintain order in the kingdom, uncover treasonous conspiracies and guard against any threat from outside of Khorvaire. Phiarlan assassins removed insurgent leaders and other internal threats. On more than one occasion, House Phiarlan helped to enforce the strange laws of Khorvarien inheritance, such as the ones which prevented the eldest child of Breland’s king from ever succeeding to Breland’s throne.
There were occasions, even during the days of a united Galifar, when the rulers of the Five Nations plotted against each other and even against their monarch and House Phiarlan was often involved in those schemes. Nascent organizations that would eventually grow into Breland’s intelligence service, the King’s Citadel, Aundair’s Royal Eyes and their like among the other kingdoms relied heavily on intelligence purchased from House Phiarlan.
With the death of King Jarot, the best efforts of House Phiarlan were no longer able to ensure a peaceful transfer of power and Khorvaire was plunged into a century of warfare. Each of the Five Nations built up its own corps of covert agents and set them to work against the spies of enemy nations while continuing to rely heavily on Phiarlan intelligence as the House of Shadows worked for all sides.
A house that was more strongly unified to begin with might have been able to remain united even under such circumstances, but House Phiarlan had always been fractious. The Mark of Shadow appeared not in one elven family line but in several and relations among the Phiarlan lines had been strained in the past. Five elven lineages—the Tialaen, Shol, Elorrenthi, Thuranni, and Paelion—were the most prominent and influential families in House Phiarlan before the schism. Each line had its particular strengths within the broad field of the house’s activities and preferred clients among the factions and organizations of the Five Nations. Rivalry among those six families, not to mention the numerous smaller families within the house’s hierarchy, often grew fierce. Ultimately, the strains of the Last War proved to be greater than the ties that bound the Phiarlan families together.
The final blow came in 972 YK. The Order of the Emerald Claw—at the time, still an extension of Karrnath’s government—was a favored client of the Thuranni family, as well as the most important espionage-related organization in Karrnath’s government. Knight Superior Kadrath ir’Vardikk, a high-ranking Emerald Claw knight, came to Lord Elar Thuranni d’Phiarlan with information that pointed to a Brelish plot to assassinate both Karrnath’s regent Moranna and its young king, Kaius III. The plot relied heavily on the talents of the Paelion line, who represented the most fearsome assassins of House Phiarlan. Sir Kadrath demanded that the Thuranni line eliminate the Paelions before the assassins could carry out their mission.
At first, Lord Elar was hesitant to strike against others in his own house. He first tried to verify the information Sir Kadrath had brought him. What the Thuranni agents uncovered, however, was a far greater threat than a simple assassination plot against Karrnath. Lord Tolar Paelion d’Phiarlan, it seemed, had concocted an elaborate scheme to bring the Last War to an end and gather the reins of power in Khorvaire, not in Breland’s hands, but in his own. Part of this plan, Lord Elar learned, involved exterminating the other Phiarlan families as well as the leadership of the other dragonmarked houses.
Some might have dismissed these plans as megalomaniacal ravings that presented a little serious threat. But since they originated in the most skilled line of assassins in all of Khorvaire, however, Lord Elar took them utterly seriously, and he ordered an immediate strike by the Thurannito exterminate the Paelions before Lord Tolar could carry out his plan.
Lord Elar himself killed Tolar and his immediate family, while the Thuranni agents at his command slaughtered every Paelion within the family holdings in the Lhazaar Principalities and every one they could find in the Phiarlan holdings across Khorvaire.
Outraged at this apparent betrayal within the house, Baron Elvinor Ellorenthi d’Phiarlan declared the entire Thuranni line excoriate from the house. Defiant, Lord Elar refused this ancient punishment and instead declared that his line would establish a new dragonmarked house, House Thuranni. The clients of the Thuranni family continued doing business with the excoriate house and Elar—now having taken the title of baron of his new house—managed to acquire some of the clients who had been loyal to the Paelion line.
To the present day, Baron Eldar d’Thuranni maintains that he acted only out of loyalty to his own house and all of the other dragonmarked houses and quashed a plot that would have thrown all of Khorvaire into even greater chaos. There are many sides to the story, however, and—as in all tales of spies and assassins—the truth is hard to discover.
Some would suggest that the Order of the Emerald Claw—a pawn of the Lich Queen Vol— actually fabricated the evidence against the Paelions, bringing some of it to Lord Elar while planting the rest in the Paelion holdings for Elar’s spies to uncover. Some further suggest a link between the Emerald Claw’s role in the Shadow Schism and Regent Moranna ir’Wynarn’s decision to outlaw the order in Karrnath just four years later.
Other theories suggest wilder conspiracies. Some claim that human agents of the draconinc Chamber helped to bring the schism about in order to fulfill the prophetic claims about thirteen dragonmarked houses or the split of a single house. Others whisper that at least one prisoner in Dreadhold, a half-elven member of House Lyrandar, is imprisoned there for his role in fomenting the Schism. Still, others claim that Lord Elar and Baron Elvinor amicably agreed to a split in the house and used a mutual enemy, the Paelion line, as a scapegoat to cloak their true intentions.
Whatever the truth, the Shadow Schism was the most important consequence of the Last War as far as the dragonmarked houses are concerned. Just as the Kingdom of Galifar was fractured into smaller nations, so too the Last War left the dragonmarked houses broken, unsure of their role in the new world and their ties to the new political powers who ruled Khorvaire.
House Thuranni went on to found the Shadow Network, a guild of artisans and entertainers who also served as spies, intelligence operatives and most importantly, assassins.
976 YK
Regent Moranna of Karrnath, the aunt of King Kaius III and granddaughter of King Kaius I, outlawed the Order of the Emerald Claw in Karrnath in 976 YK, two years after she became the regent of Karrnath. Regent Moranna stunned her kingdom’s people by outlawing the Order of the Emerald Claw, as she herself had once been a devotee of the Emerald Claw’s allied Blood of Vol cult. Moranna had learned the truth about both the Blood of Vol and the Emerald Claw—both were simply vehicles for the vengeance-fueled ambitions of the Lich Queen Vol. Moranna had learned this in secret from her grandfather, the vampiric Kaius I, who returned disguised to Karrnath at this time and revealed the truth to his descendants. Though internal grumbling among the Karrn nobility about the influence of the Emerald Claw had long existed, none had foreseen the regent’s seizing of the order’s barracks and the arrest of its most active and powerful knights. Some members of the Emerald Claw were imprisoned in Karrnath for years; others were tried, convicted of treason against the Karrn Crown, and executed. This blow against the order reduced the direct influence of the Blood of Vol at the highest levels of Karrnath’s aristocracy and enhanced and restored the power of the Karrn monarchy over the kingdom, but the Emerald Claw was far from destroyed. The Lich Queen Vol remained determined to use the cult and its knighthood to take control of Karrnath and use the kingdom to spread her influence across Khorvaire and gain vengeance on the elves of Aerenal and the dragons of Argonessen.
980 YK
In late 979 YK, Queen Barvette of Aundair succumbed to a magical illness. Rumors spread that Emerald Claw assassins had struck again, perhaps hoping to restore their favor with the Karrnathi monarch. In any event, the transition to power of Barvette’s daughter in Aundair went forward relatively smoothly, and Queen Aurala was crowned in 980 YK. After Aurala came to power, Aundair’s royal family consisted of Queen Aurala, her husband Prince Consort Sasik, her three children, and the extended families of her four siblings. Aurala’s younger brother Prince Adal served as her warlord and minister of magic, and he shares her desire to see the crown of Galifar on the head of an Aundairian noble. He wants that head to be his, though, and not his sister’s.
In principle, Queen Aurala ir’Wynarn rules as the absolute monarch of Aundair. In practice, an unofficial triumvirate governs the land: Queen Aurala, her brother Adal (who holds the titles of First Warlord and Royal Minister of Magic), and Lord Darro ir’Lain (Second Warlord of the Realm and commander of the Knights Arcane). The members of the triumvirate have a genteel rivalry with each other. Not one of them completely trusts the other two, but they realize that they currently have a shared destiny.
Another Wynarn brother, Prince Aurad, serves as Queen Aurala’s chief adviser and governor of the Aundairian capital city of Fairhaven. Her youngest sisters, the twin Princesses Wrel and Wrey, currently study with the mages of Arcanix. From the royal court of the fortress of Fairhold, built at the heart of the city of Fairhaven, Aurala governed the land using everything at her disposal. Queen Aurala has her eyes fixed on the vacant Galifar throne. She believes that the last century has proved that war will not gain Galifar’s throne for anyone. But diplomacy, subterfuge, and more focused battles might succeed where the free-for-all that was the Last War ultimately failed. She encourages the ambitions of Darro and Adal, but she is determined that Aundair will not make any moves unless they fit into her own strategies and intrigues. She hopes that the overtures of peace that resulted in the Treaty of Thronehold continue at least until she has had a chance to reinforce her kingdom’s military strength, but she has reservations about some of the less refined new nations. Currently, the Royal Eyes of Aundair keeps watch on the activities of the other nations of Khorvaire as Queen Aurala plays diplomat in public and conspirator in private.
986 YK
In addition to hosting aggressive tribes of goblins, ogres, and Khorvaire’s largest gnoll population, the area of western Khorvaire that became the Kingdom of Droaam has long been home to a wide variety of dangerous monsters—both natural beasts like trolls, gnolls and ogres and strange creatures formed from dark magic like harpies and medusas. Droaam has long been a home to these fearsome creatures. Medusas match wits with harpies and hags. Ogres, minotaurs, and trolls compete in tests of might. Aside from a few fertile valleys, the region is rocky and inhospitable; while glory-seeking knights often ventured into the barrens in search of adventure, no ruler of Breland ever considered the full conquest of the area to be worth the effort. For their part, the various monsters of the region never developed the organization or leadership required to threaten the eastern domain. Instead, ogre and troll fought one another, pausing only to crush that occasional questing knight. And so throughout the history of Breland, the western barrens were a place of dark legend. Mothers would threaten to send bad children to the barrens to be eaten by monsters, but otherwise few people thought much about the creatures lurking to the west.
The Last War did not go unnoticed by the monstrous inhabitants of the barrens. As Breland’s forces were depleted and diverted to the front lines, monsters began to venture into the lowlands, raiding villages or striking travelers and fading back into the barrens. But these actions were uncoordinated attacks with no long-term goals or effects since no central authority could exert influence over the various creatures of the land. Other warring nations occasionally sent scouts into the barrens to rile up the monsters or hire monstrous warbands to strike at Breland. Karrnath was particularly good at convincing monster warlords who ruled various parts of the barrens to descend upon and pillage the lowland settlements.
A trio of hags known as the Daughters of Sora Kell—Sora Katra, Sora Maenya, and Sora Teraza—arrived in Droaam in 986 YK with an army of trolls, ogres, and gnolls. These crones were already legends. The green hag Sora Katra had haunted the Shadow Marches for generations, while the annis Sora Maenya had terrorized the Eldeen Reaches and the dusk hag Sora Teraza roamed theDemon Wastes in search of ancient knowledge. The hags had prepared for many years to claim a land for their own, and they arrived in the barrens of far western Breland with an army of fanatical gnolls, ogres, and trolls. Every child in Aundair was raised on tales of the terrible Sora Maenya, and any Brelish bard can sing a dozen songs about the fools who thought to match wits with Sora Katra. Few people believed these myths, and no one expected these hags to emerge at the head of an army of war trolls and skullcrusher ogres—a power unseen in the west of Khorvaire since the time of the Dhakaani Empire. What few people realize is that the Daughters are not simply fey hags: they are half-fiends, cambions. Their mother, Sora Kell, is a powerful night hag, though the fathers of the crones have been lost to legend. The Daughters do not have wings, but they possess all other half-fiend traits and abilities.
Within a decade the hags established control over the lands beneath the western Byeshk Mountains, bringing order to the region for the first time in seven thousand years. Many questions linger over this newborn Kingdom of Droaam for the crowned lords of Khorvaire. For centuries the hags were content to lurk in waste, wood, and swamp. What caused them to leave their haunts and claim a kingdom? Do they intend to extend their control beyond the Graywall Mountains and claim human subjects, or is a nation of monsters all that they desire? Is the Kingdom of Monsters their only desire, or is it only the first step in a far greater scheme?
Renowned in song as the trickster of the deep swamp, Sora Katra, a half-fiend green hag, has been a figure in Brelish folktales for centuries. Stories abound of those who have gone to her in search of secrets or treasure, planning to best her with wit or steel. With few exceptions, these tales always come to a bad end. Her charisma and skill with words are remarkable, and while the threat of violence forms the foundation of Droaam, Sora Katra’s rhetoric is quickly building a fanatical following for the hags. When all three of the hags are encountered, Sora Katra will do most of the talking. She uses her shapechanging abilities constantly, choosing forms to distract or disorient her opponents. She sees the world as a vast gameboard and is always playing out dozens of schemes. One of her primary tools is a criminal organization known as Daask (a Giant word translating as“monstrous eye”), which has spread east through Breland and Aundair.
There are few legends of the half-fiend dusk hag Sora Teraza. Until the founding of Droaam, only the most erudite bards had heard of the blind crone said to wander the Demon Wastes. Many believe that she is the motivating force behind Droaam—that she was the one who sought out her sisters, guided by an oracular vision. She speaks rarely, but her sisters pay close attention to every word. All dusk hags possess oracular abilities, but Sora Teraza’s are unnaturally powerful. However, she does not control these visions; instead, the visions control her, as she seems to feel an obligation to fulfill the visions she receives.
The half-fiend annis hag Sora Maenya has terrorized the Eldeen Reaches for generations. Her strength and appetite are legendary, and she is said to have wrestled the dragon Saerylak and devoured him raw. Few creatures have survived her iron grip, and she takes personal pleasure in breaking giants and other monsters that challenge the Daughters. Over the centuries she has devoured shifter tribes and left entire villages barren and empty. She takes great pleasure in hunting rangers and other human prey. While many Droaamites adore Sora Katra, far more fear Sora Maenya. While Sora Maenya is known for her strength, she is no dumb brute. She lets Sora Katra run the nation but Sora Maenya is a cunning orator in her own right. She prefers to ply her skills on individuals, playing games with her prey before tearing them to shreds. She is also an unbridled sensualist, and she is always searching for new tastes and experiences. Of all the sisters, Sora Maenya is most likely to be encountered alone, as she wanders the wilds in search of bloody entertainment. Sora Maenya prefers to fight with her hands; she enjoys the sensation of crushing bones and rending flesh. However, when leading her war trolls into battle, she may choose to use a battle axe or greatsword.
The sisters and their minions established themselves in the ancient Dhakaani ruins at the base of the Great Crag. Over the course of the following year, 987 YK, the hags established their power through force of arms, destroying or scattering humanoid tribes and the domains of lesser warlords. After a sufficient number of examples had been made, the sisters called for the remaining powers of the region to present themselves at the Great Crag. There, the hags declared the foundation of the nation of Droaam—a haven for all the creatures feared and shunned by the common races of Khorvaire, including ogres, hill giants, minotaurs, gnolls, trolls, goblins, orcs, medusas, and harpies.
Over the next few months, Sora Katra established the basic system of tribute that passes for government in Droaam. Since then the hags have been rebuilding the court at the Great Crag and slowly establishing contact with the outside world. (They petitioned, unsuccessfully, to be included in the peace talks that led to the Thronehold Accords, and thus the Kingdom of Monsters remains unrecognized by the rest of Khorvaire.) While Sora Katra’s charisma is undeniable, the long-term goals of the green hag and her sisters remain a mystery.
The medusas of the ancient goblin city of Cazhaak Draal also welcomed the rule of the Sisters. In 985 YK, a mysterious visitor came to speak to the medusas’ Queen of Stone: a gray-robed hag, who met the medusa’s gaze without fear. Sora Teraza spoke with Queen Sheshka from sunrise to sunset, and after the hag departed, Sheshka spent the evening in silent contemplation. The next day she told her people to prepare for great change. Over the course of the next year, she brought together a corps of medusas, preparing them for service in foreign lands. When the Daughters of Sora Kell assumed power in 986 YK, representatives of Cazhaak Draal were quickly dispatched to the Great Crag. Today medusa architects direct the ongoing construction of Droaam’s new capital. Medusas hold many positions of power, both in Droaam and in the monstrous communities that have since spread across Khorvaire; in Sharn, the medusa Kasslak maintains order in the dangerous district of Malleon’s Gate, while a medusa named Harash is the second-in-command of Sharn’s Daask cell. The deadly power of a medusa commands respect, but in a nation of ogres, minotaurs, gnolls, and harpies, the keen intellect of the medusa is often more useful than its petrifying gaze. The people of Cazhaak Draal have prospered since the rise of the hags, and for the moment, the Queen of Stone is content to serve. The Daughters of Sora Kell are formidable enemies, and Sheshka does not have the power to challenge them. But the medusa queen is ambitious and cunning, and she is always searching for ways to increase her influence.
The wilds of Droaam are also home to the dragonmarked elven wizard Mordain the Fleshweaver, an excoriate of House Phiarlan who was banished from the dragonmarked houses’magical academy of the Twelve more than two centuries ago because of the unorthodox and disturbing experiments he conducted. Mordain sought to master the magic of the daelkyr, the fiendish beings who created the mind flayers and many of the other aberrations that haunt the depths of Khyber. Malformed flesh golems and strange, disfigured creatures—the results of his horrific experiments—patrolled the twisted land known as the Forest of Flesh around his living tower, Blackroot. A master transmuter and a deadly foe, Mordain is obsessed with his work and has no interest in the outside world. The Daughters of Sora Kell and their followers avoided the lands around Mordain’s tower, and he, in turn, left them alone.
In any event, whether the crowned heads of Khorvaire liked it or not, the power of theDaughters of Sora Kell meant that the new nation of Droaam needed to be respected. Members of House Tharashk became intermediaries between this new kingdom of “monsters” and the Five Nations, bartering the service of Droaamite mercenaries across Khorvaire. The house takes great pride in having forced mainstream Khorvaire to recognize that orcs and half-orcs are worthy of the same courtesies and opportunities as the races already established in the society of the Five Nations. House members began to use their status to do the same for Droaam’s monstrous races, who could be found living and working across Khorvaire with House Tharashk’s backing. Not all were pleased with this turn of events, particularly House Deneith, which saw Tharashk moving in on its core business of mercenary hiring.
In addition, after the Last War ended, Tharashk began to work with the Inspired of Riedra to locate crystal wastes in Xen’drik that provided the raw materials crucial to the creation of Riedran crysteel. The Tharashk even sent expeditions to the arctic continent of the Frostfell north of Khorvaire to prospect the frozen lands for new dragonshard fields. Tharashk might be the youngest of the dragonmarked houses, but its members were filled with ambitious fire. Its leaders intended to make their mark on Eberron and the house was always searching for lucrative new ways to do so.
987 YK
King Boranel of Breland pulled human settlers back from what had become Droaam in 987 YK and sealed off the lands west of the Graywall Mountains. The Daughters of Sora Kell declared the sovereignty of the new nation of Droaam, still reviled as the“Kingdom of Monsters” among the other peoples of the Five Nations.
990 YK
For decades, House Lyrandar had made use of elemental galleons, great ships that contained a bound water elemental which allowed them to attain speeds on Eberron’s seas and oceans that were impossible for conventional sailing ships to match. The art of binding elementals within Khyber dragonshards and then harnessing them for other uses had long been known to the Zil gnomes, who had secretly stolen the art from the Sulatar drow of Xen’drik long decades before. In the late 980’s YK the House of Storm decided to try and advance this concept to its next logical conclusion—elemental airships that made use of bound air or fire elementals contained within powerful rings of swirling winds or raging flame for propulsion. Built-in Zilargo using soarwood exported by the elven island of Aerenal and making use of the elemental-binding technology only possessed by the Zil gnomes, these vessels could sometimes be found in privateer hands, but the dragonmarked pilots of House Lyrandar were renowned for their skill and expertise. Airships have the advantage of being able to go anywhere— provided the dragonmarked pilot and crew were willing to make the trip. Travel to a dangerous locale, if the crew agrees, could easily double or triple the already extensive cost. Most Lyrandar airships only fly between the metropolises and large cities of Khorvaire, which have invested in creating and maintaining the necessary mooring towers. To go elsewhere by air, passengers had to find a privateer. Since they were relatively new, airships had not come into widespread use yet even by 998 YK, though just as the lightning rail had for House Orien, the airship promised to open up whole new vistas of profit for House Lyrandar if the heirs of Storm could master the arcane technology and construct large enough numbers of the vessels. An airship powered by a bound elemental could maintain a cruising speed of 20 miles per hour through the sky but could achieve much higher speeds for brief periods of time.
991 YK
King Kaius III took over rulership of Karrnath from his Regent Moranna in 991 YK. The great-grandson of Kaius I, son of King Jarot and first king of Karrnath after the collapse of Galifar, Kaius III has now held the crown for less than a decade. He ascended the throne upon his twentieth birthday, taking over from his aunt, the regent Moranna ir’Wynarn, who had been ruling since the unexpected death of his father, King Jaron, shortly after Kaius III was born.
Karrnath suffered heavy losses during the course of the Last War. For all its military and naval might, widespread famine and rampant disease might have ended Karrnath’s bid for power over Galifar before the third decade of the war was over. Thanks to its necromancers and corpse collectors, however, Karrnath was able to field a powerful army of skeletons and zombies even when its living forces became depleted. The Karrn royal family has weathered a number of setbacks and threats to the Crown over the years, always coming through with the support and confidence of most of the nobles and vassal lords. As for the people of Karrnath, they might not have loved all of their rulers, but they always feared and respected them. A fierce patriotism, flamed by slogans and a constant call to arms, kept the people focused on winning the war despite the hardships and suffering they had to endure.
Descendants of King Galifar I, the royal family of Kaius ir’Wynarn still rules Karrnath. The blood of Kaius I flows through a powerful extended family that oversees all government and military functions. The next tier in status, the Karrn nobles, have become warlords over the course of the last century, serving the Karrn Crown as generals and admirals, as well as overseeing the land their noble titles grant them. Since the time of King Kaius II, the warlords have been kept in line through harsh treatment and the use of force. The new king, Kaius III, began to make overtures to change this practice, though he displayed a remarkable ability to perform whatever action is necessary to maintain control and keep his plans on track. While he hopes to keep the trust of his nobles and receive their support willingly, he uses force when such action is required to demonstrate the power and position of the Crown.
Though Kaius III has shown some desire to transform his kingdom along more progressive lines, it remains essentially a military dictatorship ruled by hereditary monarchs of Wynarn blood. Royal mayors govern towns and cities. Royal ministers oversee executive departments that handle all aspects of government and foreign affairs. Laws and regulations promote a society where might makes right, and while the progressive Galifar Code of Justice provides the basis for civil rights in Karrnath, the draconian Code of Kaius that developed from it is more rigid and far less forgiving. Indeed, the nation has labored under martial law since the earliest days of the Last War.
King Kaius III keeps a closely guarded secret. He is not who or what he appears to be. Only a handful of people in the inner sanctum of Kaius’ court have even the slightest inkling that something is not quite right, and even fewer know the truth of the situation. What is that truth? It is a long, strange tale that boils down to a simple fact: Kaius III is actually Kaius I.
When the Last War was in full swing, Kaius I was approached by priests of the Blood of Vol. These priests promised to aid Karrnath against its enemies, provided Kaius agreed to a few “minor” considerations. With Cyre and Thrane pounding on his borders, and a breakdown in diplomatic relations that left Karrnath temporarily without allies, Kaius agreed to whatever terms the priests had—so long as he was provided with the means to repel the invaders. First, the Vol priests and necromancers worked with Kaius’ own court wizards to perfect the process for creating specially enhanced zombie and skeleton troops to bolster Karrnath’s forces. With the addition of armor and weapons, as well as a slight increase in power, these undead were stronger and more formidable than the average mindless walking corpse. Second, the priests provided an elite fighting force dedicated to both Vol and Kaius—the knights of the Order of the Emerald Claw. “The Order will help you here and in distant lands, where its agents will foster unrest and revolution in the homes of your enemies,” the priests explained. Both of these gifts gave an immediate boost to Karrnath’s beleaguered forces, and the order took credit for internal strife in Cyre, Breland, and Aundair.
When Vol, the ancient elven half-dragon lich at the heart of the Blood of Vol cult, appeared before Kaius to collect her “considerations” for the aid her priests provided him, he had no choice but to submit. In addition to allowing the cult to establish temples and bases throughout Karrnath, Vol demanded that Kaius partake in the Vol cult’s Sacrament of Blood. Instead of the usual ceremony, the Lich Queen invoked an ancient Qabalrin incantation that turned Kaius into a vampire lord. Instead of becoming a compliant undead thrall, however, Kaius fought to keep his independence. Furious that the royal vampire refused to be humbled, Vol eventually forced the issue by triggering Kaius’ bloodlust (something he had been struggling to control). When the crimson haze cleared, Kaius discovered that he had killed his beloved wife.
Now, after eighty years of hiding and secretly working to break all ties with the Blood of Vol, Kaius has returned to govern his nation once more. He has taken the place of his great-grandson, pretending to be Kaius III. The real Kaius III was unjustly imprisoned by his undead ancestor in Dreadhold, where this anonymous convict in the hands of the dwarves of House Kundarak who run the infamous prison has been placed in a magical mask that keeps his features and true identity hidden. With the aid of various magic items and abilities, Kaius I hides his vampiric nature and masks his appearance to look like his younger great-grandson. A burning desire to rebuild his shattered kingdom drives Kaius forward, making him one of the most troubled and dedicated rulers in Khorvaire.
Kaius retained the services of his “aunt,” the Regent Moranna, as his chief adviser and minister of internal affairs. Moranna, who was actually Kaius’ granddaughter rather than his aunt, is secretly a vampire like her king, having been transformed into one of Kaius I’s vampire spawn soon after he revealed that he was still alive to Moranna and asked for her help in creating his ruse so that they could save Karrnath from the ravages of the Last War and the machinations of the Lich QueenVol.
Queen Etrigani met Kaius when she appeared before his court on behalf of the government of Aerenal during a diplomatic tour of the Five Nations. An intense courtship followed, and the two were married in 993 YK, on the second anniversary of Kaius’ ascension to the throne. The queen has taken an active interest in the affairs of her adopted nation, and Kaius regularly sends her as an emissary to foreign courts. (Etrigani knows of her husband’s true nature and has fought to overcome her elven cultural bias against undead.) Moranna continues to serve as regent of Karrnath, a post that has been transformed from one of rulership to an advisory position. She never ventures far from the royal court or from Kaius’ side, except when he sends her out in his name to handle crises near and far. Moranna, a large, strong woman, has a commanding manner and a no-nonsense approach that leaves most of her underlings shaking in her wake.
The king keeps a harem, but not for the reason that most people think. All of the members of the royal harem are followers of the Blood of Vol who have given their allegiance to Kaius. The young men and women in the harem voluntarily give themselves to Kaius so that the king can feed. He never takes more blood than an individual can safely give, and he never goes to the same individual more than once in any two-week period. The harem is kept secluded in its own wing of Crownhome, Kaius’ family castle in Korth, and its members are forbidden to speak with anyone besides the king, queen or regent.
993 YK
Jaela Daran assumed the power of the Keeper of the Silver Flame in 993 YK after hearing the call of the Voice of the Flame, and at six years old became the youngest person to ever serve as the spiritual leader of the Church of the Silver Flame. Keeper Daran has determined to maintain the more moderate theological positions of her predecessor as Keeper and seeks to minimize the political influence of High Cardinal Krozen, the leader of the Diet of Cardinals, and his extremist Puritan faction of the Church.
994 YK
The entire Kingdom of Cyre was utterly destroyed on the Day of Mourning in 994 YK; the Mournland was created within the borders of what had been that proud nation. Once, Cyre shone more brightly than any of its sibling nations in the unified Kingdom of Galifar. The Last War took a toll on the nation and its citizens, slowly toppling its many achievements as it became the near-constant battleground on which the armies of Karrnath and Thrane and Breland clashed. Finally, disaster struck. No one knows if the catastrophe was caused by a weapon from an enemy nation or an arcane doomsday device of Cyre’s own design. The cataclysm may have been deliberate; it may have been an accident. In the end, the result was the same.
Beautiful Cyre, the jewel of Galifar’s vast imperial holdings, exploded in a blast of arcane power the likes of which had not been seen since the ruin of Xen’drik forty thousand years before at the end of the Quori-Giant War. On what soon became known as the Day of Mourning in 994 YK, Cyre disappeared in a horrific blast of intense arcane power. Now the region that was once Cyre goes by a different, darker name. Now it is simply the Mournland.
A dead-gray mist hugs the borders of the Mournland, creating a barrier that only occasionally offers a glimpse of the desolation and devastation inside. Curiously, the mist tightly hugs the old national border of Cyre, never extending beyond what was a man-made border to infect the other lands of Khorvaire. Beyond the mist, this battle-scarred region remains a grim memory of the Last War, cloaked in perpetual, gray twilight. Like a wound that will not heal, the land is broken and blasted. In some places, the ground has fused into jagged glass. In others, it is cracked and burned and gouged. Broken bodies of soldiers from the various factions litter the landscape—soldiers whose dead bodies refuse to decompose. The Mournland is, quite literally, a vast open tomb.
In the Mournland, the wounds of war never heal, vile magical effects linger and monsters mutate into even more foul and horrible creatures. Arcane effects continue to rain upon the land like magical storms that never dissipate. Mutated by the unnatural arcane forces present across the region, monsters rage and hunt as they struggle to survive. Sometimes even some of the dead, animated by strange powers radiating from the blasted ground, rise up to continue fighting the war that has long since ended for the living. At the same time, in this land of disaster and mutation, a charismatic warforged gathers followers to his side and seeks to build an empire of his own.
The Cyrans who were not killed in the disaster that warped the region fled to safer locales and now live as exiles in other lands. Few sentient beings live within the borders of the dead-gray mists, and no survivors of the old order can be found in this shattered realm. The arcane force that destroyed the nation killed most living things, so survival itself is a near-impossible struggle. Now mutated monsters roam the land, preying on each other and grazing on the stubborn thornweeds that alone seem to thrive in the blasted land.
Scavenger bands brave the Mournland, looking for art objects and artifacts to sell. Though Thrane and Breland attempt to keep such outlaws from operating out of their environs, Karrnath encouraged this kind of activity and offered tempting bounties to those who recovered items of worth or power. In this regard, Karrnath and New Cyre (in Breland) are in competition, for both groups want to discover what happened on the Day of Mourning and recover whatever can be saved from the wreckage. Independent scavenger bands also approach the Mournland from the Talenta Plains, Darguun, and Kraken Bay, while raiding parties of Valenar elves venture into the region in search of worthy challenges.
If the rumors are true, a society of sorts has claimed the Mournland as its own. This society of warforged has grown up around a charismatic and powerful warforged leader—the Lord of Blades. Somewhere within the border of dead-gray mist, the enclave of the Lord of Blades rises above the broken land as a beacon that gathers warforged who have dedicated themselves more to their construct heritage than to their living heritage. Every month or so, another warforged enters the Mournland in search of this supposed haven for living constructs. Some tales speak of the Lord of Blades as a great philosopher and teacher. Others paint him as a warlord and power-mad prophet seeking to establish a warforged nation from which to challenge the weaker, flesh-bound races for supremacy of Khorvaire.
The Lord of Blades has established the foundation for a warforged nation in the barren reaches of the Mournland. No one is quite sure where the Lord of Blades came from, and no outsider knows exactly where his mythical city of living constructs might be located. Some tales claim that the Lord of Blades led the warforged armies of Cyre in the Last War. Others cast him as a newer warforged, perhaps the last to come out of the Cannith creation forges before the Thronehold Accords led to their dismantling. One black tale paints a story of how the Lord of Blades caused the destruction of Cyre, warning that he plans to repeat the Day of Mourning in each of the remaining Five Nations.
Whatever the truth, the warforged messiah has become an iconic beacon for a segment of the warforged population—and is considered an abomination by the rest. The Lord of Blades has a fanatical band of warforged followers at his side, devotees who memorize his sermons advocating supremacy for living constructs. He preaches an apocalyptic vision of a future where the warforged will destroy or enslave the weaker nations of flesh and blood. “We were made to rule Eberron,” the Lord of Blades has declared over and over again, “and the day will come when the warforged will inherit this world through blade and blood!” No one knows how many warforged have joined forces with the Lord of Blades. While most authorities throughout the surrounding regions believe that this dangerous prophet exists, no one has been able to gather much intelligence concerning his activities. Even the elves of House Phiarlan are in the dark about the Lord of Blades—and that is not a place the House of Shadow likes to be.
The followers of the Lord of Blades see their leader as a prophet of sorts. His message is only to the warforged since his scripture deals with building a nation of living constructs out of the Mournland and then carving an empire from the flesh and blood of the common races. His followers look forward to the Promised Time when those created as slaves will rule over their former masters.
The Day of Mourning proved to be particularly disastrous for House Cannith. The House of Making had long made Cyre its primary base of operations on Khorvaire, particularly its first and largest ancestral forgehold of Whitehearth, the site in the Cyran city of Eston where the greatest warforged creation forges had stood. On the Day of Mourning, hundreds of thousands of Cyrans perished, including the patriarch of House Cannith, Baron Starrin d’Cannith, known as “the Gorgon” for both his intimidating manner and the symbol of his house.
What caused the Day of Mourning, none can say. Yet, of all the cities of Cyre, Eston suffered the greatest damage. Whitehearth’s destruction claimed the life of not only Cannith’s baron but also many of the house’s most prominent leaders and dragonmarked heirs. Almost as great as the loss in blood was the loss of the forgehold itself. Whitehearth had been the center of Cannith ingenuity and invention for many centuries. Only projects concurrently researched in Cannith’s forgehold in Sharn by Merrix d’Cannith, the grandson of the first Merrix, survived the Mourning. Whitehearth is never far from the minds of House Cannith’s surviving leaders, and Merrix in particular hopes to recover much of what was lost there. Increasingly, however, the cost of such a recovery effort has exacerbated the growing rift within the house. Some Cannith heirs seek to resurrect Whitehearth one day; others wish to turn their backs on the past and focus instead on rebuilding their house’s profits in the future.
When Starrin d’ Cannith died, he left no direct heir or immediate relations, but it did not take long for claimants to the house’s leadership to appear. Typically, upon the death of a dragonmarked house’s patriarch, the title goes to his closest living relative or his named successor. Starrin’s named successor was his only son Norran d’Cannith, who died with his father in Cyre and left no children of his own.
When succession becomes disputed, the elders of a house will interpret the will of the former patriarch and choose a successor. However, with the ranks of the house’s leadership decimated, no effective or fair vote could be held. Cannith was paralyzed, with three different heirs emerging to claim leadership: Merrix d’Cannith, Jorlanna d’Cannith, and Zorlan d’Cannith. Though each had a valid claim to the patriarch’s seat, a more problematic set of candidates for control of what was once the most powerful and wealthiest of the dragonmarked houses would be difficult to find.
Merrix was the grandson of the first Merrix and the son of Aarren d’ Cannith, the creator of the first true warforged, as well as the nephew of Starrin. The youngest candidate, Merrix was little more than a boy when the warforged were first invented. His age and lack of political experience gave him the weakest claim, but his inheritance of the first Merrix’s legendary skills in arcane research and innovation forced his relatives to take him seriously. Merrix had also violated the dictates of the Treaty of Thronehold that ended the Last War to establish a secret creation forge in the city of Sharn in Breland where he still produces new warforged, seeking to constantly improve the living constructs, who Cannith still treats illegally as chattel property. Were the Five Nations to learn of the existence of this violation of the Thronehold Accords, they would be forced to take concerted action against the remains of House Cannith. Merrix wishes only to pursue these secret experiments in peace, but knowing Jorlanna and Zorlan, he is convinced that a firm hand will be required to keep House Cannith on course—not necessarily his hand but definitely one of his choosing.
Jorlanna d’Cannith was a proud, attractive woman in her fifties. She was far closer to the proper age for a dragonmarked matriarch than Merrix and her claim was stronger as well since she was the daughter of Starrin’s second wife, Elsabet. Yet, Jorlanna was considered least likely to gain the title because in her youth she had pursued a scandalous romance with a marked heir of House Deneith, and some rumors suggest that she gave birth to a son who was an aberrant dragonmarked heir. This indiscretion still haunts her and her critics use her past as proof of her lack of judgment and fitness to lead.
Zorlan was a distinguished and shrewd scion of the house. His talent with finance and eye for profit made him a trusted adviser to the Gorgon, whose cousin, Xerith d’Cannith, was Zorlan’s mother. Zorlan’s gifts, however, are eroded by his cold, cruel personality that frightens many in the house. His time in Karrnath is rumored to have drawn him into the customs of that land, including the worship of the Blood of Vol. Some fear that Zorlan’s ambition could lead him to make alliances between Cannith and dishonorable groups.
These three dragonmarked nobles were determined to each become the next leader of their house, but since none could rally the necessary support, the house remained divided into three separate factions based on geography—Cannith South, Cannith West, and Cannith East. Under Merrix d’Cannith, Cannith South was considered by many to be the closest replacement for Whitehearth the house would ever see. With his enclave in Sharn concealing the last Cannith creation forge, Merrix ruled his house’s southern interests (including all of its expeditions to Xen’drik and the Mournland)with an iron fist. Cannith South workshops and enclaves are scattered across Breland, Zilargo and even Darguun, making Merrix the most expansion-minded leader House Cannith has produced in a long time. Some believe that he intended to open facilities in Xen’drik to support his expeditions and research interests there, especially at the Cannith enclave in the city of Stormreach. Merrix actually plans to operate not just a workshop there but a second creation forge—where the Treaty of Thronehold has no legal force.
The relationship between Aundair and Cyre was close during the Last War. When Jorlanna d’Cannith had her indiscretions, she traveled to Aundair and lived there in seclusion. After her exile ended, she used her diplomatic contacts in that nation to negotiate her house’s access to the Eldeen Reaches through the Wardens of the Wood, which allowed Cannith sages to study ruins and magical locales under the druids’ supervision. Members of Cannith West were expected to be socially adept and they engaged in scholarly pursuits, especially researching magical sites in western Khorvaire. They had more contact with other dragonmarked houses and the local nobility than the other Cannith branches did. Jorlanna planned to rebuild the goodwill of the Five Nations toward her house and make a greater investment in the arcane power and research of the Twelve. Since the Twelve is headquartered in Korth, it angers Zorlan that Jorlanna’s status in the dragonmarked magical order is higher than his own.
Though Zorlan grew up in Cyre, he traveled to Karrnath as a house emissary along with the first warforged ordered by that nation. He took up residence there, advising King Kaius II and strengthening his house’s influence with the Karrn Crown. He used profitable arrangements with the Mror Holds and the Lhazaar Principalities to fill his coffers and make himself an adviser to the Gorgon. Where Cannith once had only an outpost in Karrnath, Zorlan’s leadership saw his house’s wealth and prestige there grow. Before the Day of Mourning, many Cannith heirs were sent to Karrnath to study administration, diplomacy and to receive martial instruction at the Rekkenmark Academy. Though the steady stream of warforged into Karrnath ended after the Last War, Cannith East still has great expertise in siege warfare and its house members serve as advisers to the Karrn warlords. The Karrn culture has left its mark on Cannith East, and not for the better. Members take a callous view of mortality and view the undead as little more than the necromantic equivalent of warforged. Research is one of the strengths of Cannith East and current research at its Korth enclave enters on creating a new form of living construct that contains a bound ghostly spirit as its animating intelligence. Living among the Karrns has led many members of Cannith East to join the Blood of Vol. Nearly half the members of the Korth enclave are members of that cult and Zorlan d’Cannith himself is an avid member of the faith and aspires to a position in its lay priesthood. These religious entanglements are likely to deepen the rift between the various Cannith factions in years to come.
996 YK
The destruction of Cyre on the Day of Mourning and the heavy losses incurred to the remaining Five Nations’ armies due to troops lost in Cyre on that day forced the Last War to grind to a sudden, screeching halt. The Treaty of Thronehold, negotiated over the course of two years at the island of Thronehold in Scions Sound at the invitation of King Kaius III of Karrnath, was signed by representatives of all the powers of Khorvaire and officially ended the Last War in 996 YK. The treaty recognized the independence and sovereignty of the nations of Aundair, Breland, Thrane, Karrnath, the Talenta Plains, Zilargo, Q’barra, the Lhazaar Principalities, the Mror Holds, the Eldeen Reaches, Darguun, and Valenar. Droaam, the “Kingdom of Monsters,” was not recognized by the treaty at the insistence of Breland. Also at the insistence of Breland’s King Boranel, the three remaining factions of House Cannith were ordered by the assembled heads of state at Thronehold to destroy all their creation forges; the remaining warforged were granted the full civil rights of sentient beings. Unfortunately, this promise was only kept in the breach by Thrane and Karrnath which declared many of their warforged “indentured servants” to the government who had to give service to the state to pay for the cost of their creation. The treaty also recognized the continued authority of the Sentinel Marshals to track down and arrest criminals—particularly war criminals—across national borders.
The treaty also addressed the issue of war crimes. The independent nations of Khorvaire had no central authority to whom they could turn to levy charges against citizens and military leaders of other countries. The Last War saw many atrocities committed in the name of kings and gods, and the populace of the remaining Five Nations cried out for someone with the power to convict and sentence those responsible. Thus did the treaty establish the Tribunal of Thronehold, a court that rules from the neutral island, ensconced in a wing of the great castle. From there, the long hand of justice, supported by all sovereign nations, reaches across the continent to smite those responsible for the worst horrors of the war.
Or, at least, so the rulers of the Five Nations would have their citizenry believe. The truth is, for all its symbolic importance, the Tribunal has very little true power. Thwarted at almost every turn by the very nations that formed it, it struggles to carry out its mandate in the face of ruling classes that simply want to put the Last War out of their minds—or else reignite it into an even larger conflagration.
The Tribunal of Thronehold was almost an afterthought to the treaty. Although the documents that could confirm this assertion are now sealed, most people claim that King Boranel of Breland first suggested the formation of a multilateral international court, following months of bickering and fighting among the rulers and representatives. Many of these arguments were sparked by accusations of war crimes and atrocities between rivals, and some people believe that Boranel’s primary motivation was to end the arguments, not to bring the perpetrators to justice. The formation of the Tribunal added several weeks of deliberation to the Treaty of Thronehold. Thrane wanted an exemption for formal inquisitions carried out by the Church of the Silver Flame. Queen Aurala of Aundair wanted a strict definition of a “war crime” as opposed to a “military operation with civilian casualties.” Kaius III refused, initially, to subject his warlords’ troops to foreign oversight. The hobgoblins of Darguun had to have the human concept of “war crimes” actually defined for them. And so on, and so forth.
Eventually, like every other provision of the treaty, this issue was hammered out. The Tribunal’s first magistrates were assigned from the ranks of the participating nations’ nobles and politicians. The Tribunal of Thronehold consists of ten magistrates, one from each of the treaty’s signatory nations, with the exceptions of Q’barra, which refused to recognize the court’s authority since it had no precedent in the Code of Galifar, and Valenar, whose warrior elves simply had no interest in participating except as hired “retrievers.” Magistrates from Aundair, Breland, Karrnath, and Thrane hold the power of two votes each, while every other magistrate has one. It requires a simple majority for the court to agree to hear a particular case and to demand the appearance of an accused war criminal, but it requires a two-thirds majority for conviction and sentencing.
The Tribunal of Thronehold holds an immense amount of symbolic power. It represents the efforts of all (well, most) nations to seek justice for the worst offenses of the Last War. It illustrates that they can unify behind higher matters than war, that they can cooperate for the good of all. Symbolic power, however, has not translated into much actual power. By the strictures of the treaty, all nations must cooperate with the Tribunal, turning over records, evidence, and accused war criminals when requested. Most of the nations are quick to accuse rivals of stalling but are remarkably hesitant to turn over their own materials and “fugitives.” The Tribunal lacks the personnel to hunt down and take most accused by force, so it must reserve such efforts for only the most heinous and fearsome war criminals.
Nations might bring economic pressure to bear against their neighbors at the request of the Tribunal, in hopes of forcing a resolution, but many will not risk their own trade status by doing so, and none will launch military missions for these purposes. Thus, the Tribunal is largely limited to issuing a writ of accusation—a declaration of an individual’s accused crimes, and an insistence that he turn himself in—since it can rarely force an individual to appear. All the signatory nations are required to provide fifty soldiers for the Tribunal’s use, forming an “army” five hundred strong. Most soldiers see this duty as either a cushy assignment or an exile; few take it seriously. These soldiers serve little more than a symbolic purpose; they are not really needed to guard the island of Thronehold, because House Deneith’s Throne Wardens do that, and they are not a sufficient force to invade a sovereign nation in search of a fugitive. (Even if they could, the Tribunal is unwilling to send troops to invade its member nations, since it is justifiably afraid of divided loyalties.) Thus, these troops do little more than serve as court bailiffs, bodyguards for the magistrates, and jailers for the occasional accused criminal the Tribunal actually does manage to drag in.
The ten nations also provide a small amount of money to the Tribunal each year, to keep the court operational. From this treasury, the Tribunal draws funds to hire Deneith, Medani, or Valenar mercenaries when it thinks the charges against a war criminal are so severe that he or she must be brought in. These “retrieval teams” are hated by the sovereign nations, and occasionally face military opposition, but most of the time the various kingdoms grudgingly allow them to operate. Given the delicate nature of these retrieval operations, the Tribunal has given some thought in recent months to hiring smaller, more precise teams than mercenaries—such as skilled adventuring parties.
Officially, anyone can travel to the Hall of Judgment at Thronehold, seek an audience with the court, and levy charges against someone for war crimes. On a practical level, however, the Tribunal rarely has time to listen to anyone who does not arrive with official government, house, or church backing. Even when it does, the only result is a writ of accusation; the Tribunal has never sent a retrieval team out based on charges brought by a civilian.
996 YK
A figure of dark legend to the people of Khorvaire, the elven wizard Mordain the Fleshweaver was driven from the Twelve after his attempts to create new life went horribly awry, and since then he has lingered in the shadows of Droaam. Many terrors exist in Mordain’s domain. But the woods hold wonders as well as horrors. The strangest of these is the village of Dolurrh’s Dawn, a bizarre point of light deep within the Kingdom of Monsters. Dolurrh’s Dawn is a village of 104 people. The origin of the village is a mystery even to those who live there. On Dravago 11, 996 YK, these people awoke in their beds in the village. Each one of them remembered his or her name and the name of the village . . . and nothing else. Despite this amnesia, each villager found that he or she could draw upon talents lying beyond conscious memory—skills that he or she could not remember learning. The next year became a struggle for survival in a very dangerous land. Working together, the people of Dolurrh’s Dawn crafted weapons, learned to hunt the vicious beasts of the Forest of Flesh, and slowly created a life in this savage land.
A village of amnesiacs appearing from nowhere is strange enough, but the inhabitants of Dolurrh’s Dawn have not even realized the true extent of the mystery surrounding their little community. The people of the village know their own names, but they remember nothing about the past or the history of Eberron . . . and as such, when they first awoke, they did not recognize any of the other inhabitants of the village. But the first travelers who eventually discover this village are in for a shock. A dwarf named Kordran serves as the town blacksmith. His face might seem familiar to anyone who has been to the Mror Holds, and it should not take long to realize why: They have seen it carved into the side of the Ironroot Mountains, in a monument over a mile in height! For Kordran is Lord Kordran Mror, the greatest king to ever rule the lost Kingdom of Stone beneath the mountains. The mud-spattered huntress was Lhazaar, the Sarlonan explorer and pirate who first led humanity to the shores of Khorvaire. Galifar I sits at a table with Karrn the Conqueror and Jarot ir’Wynarn, the last ruler of the kingdom Galifar founded. Rasha’Torrn, the orc druid who led the Gatekeepers’ final ritual to banish the daelkyr in the Dragon Below and prevent Xoriat from ever becoming coterminous with Eberron is present with Cael Vadallia, a legendary archer and Tairnadal ancestor from the Age of Giants and a human version of Kaius I, the man who would later turn the nation of Karrnath over to the Lich Queen Vol and be transformed into a vampire for his troubles. This is a village filled with heroes and legends—yet none of them remember their heroic (or infamous) deeds, nor do they possess the full skills spoken of in the stories.
So what are they? Has Mordain found a way to pull these ancient spirits back from the afterlife, in violation of the laws of Dolurrh? Or are these people simulacrums created by the Fleshweaver—clones with vestiges of the heroes’ memories, but no true trace of their souls? Either way, what does Mordain have to gain from this experiment and why has he chosen the subjects that he has? The people of Dolurrh’s Dawn may be nothing more than a strange footnote in the history of Eberron—or they may yet prove that the Prophecy can bring even the greatest heroes of the past back to life when they are needed for an epic purpose.
997 YK - 998 YK
The end of the Last War proved to be good for Stormreach, the small city in northern Xen’drik that was Khorvaire’s gateway to the secrets of that mysterious continent. According to a Library of Korranberg census, the city had about nine thousand residents in 996 YK. Estimates suggest that more than two thousand immigrants had joined them by 998 YK, swelling the city’s population to more than 11,600 residents. More arrived every day. With the Last War at an end, there was a groundswell of interest in the city. Refugees who lost their homes in Khorvaire came in search of a fresh start. Academics from the Five Nations’ universities sought answers to Xen’drik’s myriad mysteries. The dragonmarked houses saw untapped potential in the wild lands beyond the city’s walls. And so the population grew and the city expanded. Moreover, transients steadily flowed through—hundreds of merchants, sailors, explorers, and others who remain for a few days before passing on to the next port of call.
Following the gaping hole in military service created by the national demobilizations that followed the Treaty of Thronehold, a small company formed to take advantage of the military expertise and discipline now lying fallow. Mackinnon “Mace” Maceck, a dwarf entrepreneur and former Cyran battlefield commander, created a transportation and security firm to contract out his services to the highest bidder. Under his charismatic influence, soldiers, adventurers, and support personnel from every corner of Khorvaire found gainful employment at the end of the war.
This firm, the Blackwheel Company, began by taking the jobs that no other organization, including the dragonmarked houses, would touch. Clandestine smuggling missions into areas deemed too dangerous to risk valuable house or national resources became the company’s calling card. As the company grew in reputation and prowess, the dragonmarked houses elected to commandeer this rising military power. A special meeting of the Committee of Twelve was convened, and the dragonmarked houses pooled their resources to essentially buy out the Blackwheel Company. By retaining their services indefinitely and exclusively, the Twelve created for itself a military force that could be deployed anywhere in the world to pursue the aims of the dragonmarked houses’ magical academy’s council. As the first order of business, the Twelve dispatched the company to the continent of Xen’drik, where Mace, having appointed himself the Field Marshal of the Company, established operations under a new flag—a thirteen-spoked wheel surrounding the motto “UnitedAim,” symbolizing the shared interests of the Twelve.
The group’s current base of operations, a massive airship, provides the company with the mobility and firepower needed to operate in the most inhospitable regions of Xen’drik. This airship, the Glory Road, is rumored to be a House Lyrandar special project funded by the combined resources of the dragonmarked houses and is a sight to behold. This leviathan of an airship provides a mobile base of operations that keep the Blackwheel Company’s nerve center from being tied down to any one location. The current focus of the company appears to be furthering the arcane research agenda of the Twelve—securing dragonshard deposits, exploring ancient ruins, and protecting vital artifacts in and around Stormreach.
The Blackwheel Company was one of four adventurer societies—along with the Cabal of Shadows, the Covenant of Light, and the Crimson Codex—that sought to unlock portions of the Draconic Prophecy in Xen’drik. These factions are relatively small and operate primarily within the continent of Xen’drik, although they may have interests elsewhere in Eberron. Dedicated to discovering—and manipulating—the pieces of the Draconic Prophecy known as the Caldyn Fragments (see below), these organizations often found themselves in direct competition. Their conflicts become bloody as the factions mount rival expeditions, racing into the heart of Xen’drik in pursuit of the Prophecy’s mysteries.
These four divergent power groups—the Blackwheel Company, the Cabal of Shadows, the Covenant of Light, and the Crimson Codex—are motivated by one event: the discovery, collection, and translation of various pieces of the Draconic Prophecy into a single document. This work was accomplished by a human Library of Korranberg scholar originally from the Brelish aristocracy named Lord Ohnal Caldyn. Even as a child, Ohnal could talk to a dragonmarked individual, or see a dragonshard, or study the skies, and he would make a prediction that at first seemed to go unfulfilled—only to be confirmed later in a different context. Taking to the life of an adventurer, Ohnal made it his mission to gather knowledge and insight into the Draconic Prophecy. He began to understand that his ability to see the shifting patterns of reality tapped into a force that flowed through dragons, going back to the very first great Progenitor dragons whose forms created the world.
The notes that Ohnal Caldyn recorded in his red dragonhide-covered tome became known as the Caldyn Fragments. The most frequent mistake made by students of the Prophecy is to use“Draconic Prophecy” and “Caldyn Fragments” interchangeably. They are not the same. The Draconic Prophecy is an ever-changing and ephemeral force that, as far as anyone can tell, moves like a shadow behind reality, both reflecting and predicting the ebb and flow of all things living on, above and beneath Eberron. The Caldyn Fragments are the result of Ohnal Caldyn’s efforts to capture a small part of the Prophecy in a written form that could be easily understood by humans and manipulated to produce desired outcomes.
Caldyn founded the organization known as the Crimson Codex (named after the red dragon skin journal in which he recorded his prophetic fragments) to use his insights to promote peace and stability throughout Eberron and possibly support the reunification of Galifar. But as people outside the organization learned about the existence of the Caldyn Fragments, others scrambled to obtain copies of the work that could supposedly predict the future. Now, each of the four groups focused on the Caldyn Fragments tries to shape and manipulate the predictions to its own ends.
The secret society founded by Ohnal Caldyn and known as the Crimson Codex has a two-fold purpose—to study and manipulate the Draconic Prophecy. The organization’s ultimate goal is to avoid another confrontation on the scale of the Last War, reunite Galifar, and return to a golden age of peace and enlightenment. The Codex believes that knowledge is by far the most powerful weapon and that the Prophecy is the ultimate knowledge. To that end, the Crimson Codex has a network of spies and informants within all the major civilized governments of Khorvaire. This network ensures that treaties are upheld and peace remains a priority. Of the four factions pursuing the Caldyn Fragments, the Codex has the strongest connection to the dragons and their kin. Like the great wyrms, the Codex is capable of waiting many years for plans to come to fruition.
Although the Codex is a global operation with interests on each of Eberron’s continents, it continues to focus considerable resources in Xen’drik in pursuit of the ultimate prize: the potent knowledge contained in the Caldyn Fragments.
A compassionate and charismatic woman named Lirashana founded the organization known as the Covenant of Light. Although she appears to be a kalashtar, the rumor persists that she is actually a divine spirit—an angel of justice unable to ignore the pain and suffering she saw on Eberron. To the Covenant, the search to unlock the mysteries of the Caldyn Fragments is nothing less than a crusade for the powers of Light. It is said that when Lady Lirashana first endeavored to establish the Covenant, she was visited by overpowering celestial music, a force that she would later call the Song. The Song compelled her to create the Covenant in Xen’drik, and to include in its noble mission the pursuit of the Draconic Prophecy. Followers of the Covenant also hear and follow the Song and believe that an era of enlightenment and peace can be brought forth by the collective power of virtue in action. Members are expected to behave in a virtuous manner in all aspects of their lives.
Mystics of many different religions have been drawn to the Covenant, and all have their own explanation for the Song. Worshipers of the Sovereign Host claim that it is the voice of Dol Arrah, calling the virtuous to battle. Followers of the Silver Flame attribute it to the Voice of the Flame itself. The kalashtar say that it is an external manifestation of the noble impulses that exist within all mortal minds—the harbinger of il-Yannah, the glorious light of the next age of Dal Quor. Regardless of its source, all Covenant members initially experience the Song directly as music in their minds—a bright and irresistible summons that draws them individually to serve in Xen’drik.
Radiant Hold is the primary headquarters for the Covenant of Light and its chief military outpost and it lies several miles beyond the walls of Stormreach. The faction’s greatest leaders and most prized treasures all rest within its grey stone walls, well-shielded against the plots and weapons of those who would extinguish Xen’drik’s best hope for a bright future.
From the outside, Radiant Hold is something of an enigma. It appears to be a fortified citadel of classic Thrane architectural design, built entirely within the shell of a massive Xen’drik giant ruin. Eight ancient walls radiate from a central keep of crumbling rock, each one pointing in a cardinal direction. Though the outer husk of giantish construction looks as if it could fall apart at any moment, there is also a timelessness about the ruin suggesting that long after Radiant Hold itself is dust, the aged shale of its outer walls will still be standing.
Cast out from their homes, touched by darkness, or consumed by madness and rage, the members of the Cabal of Shadows are a diverse group of troubled souls. Not all of them can be called evil, but none of the Cabal’s goals could be considered virtuous. The Caldyn Fragments speak of a time of shadow and change when a dark prince will rule. The Cabal believes that the Traveler, or some agent of his, will bring this prince forth in this era and that its members will rule under him. The Cabalists intend to help bring this time of change about and see the Caldyn Fragments as their guide to the Traveler’s will.
The Cabal is made up of various cults, sects, and affiliations known as Obscura. Sects within the Cabal of Shadows can be quite different indeed—a sect of unaligned changelings can work together with a cult of evil tieflings, or even form an uneasy alliance with a pack of mad daelkyr half-bloods. But the Calling unites them all in fear and dread and hope for glory. For the most part, the Cabal is scattered throughout Xen’drik, but as with any organization on the continent, the Cabal has interests in and around Stormreach.
As the name suggests, the Cabal of Shadows prefers to remain concealed in layers of darkness. Of all the societies in the city, the Cabal is the most underground, literally and otherwise. Cabalists move in the deepest catacombs and ruins beneath Stormreach, the darkest places where even the Bilge Rats, the city’s infamous wererat-lead thieves’ guild, fear to tread. There are four main Obscura in the Cabal, called the Mourners of Yore, the Defiance, the Instruments of Change and the Children of Xoriat. Each sect has its own organizational details, goals, and character, but all follow the mystical force known as the Calling and the four largest sects govern the entire Cabal through the Council of the Obscured. The council, it is said, performs certain dark rituals below Stormreach and elsewhere in Xen’drik to channel the true voice of the Calling and direct the actions of the Cabal as a whole. Without these regular rituals, it is likely that the sects would turn to savage infighting, collapsing the Cabal from within. The Calling binds the various sects of the Cabal together and calls the members to Xen’drik. The few courageous scholars who have studied the phenomenon suspect that the Calling is a magical aspect of the Traveler that manifests in the dreams and unconscious minds of mortals. All Cabal members initially experience the Calling as a voice in their minds—an irresistible summons that draws them to Xen’drik. It is not lost on the members of the Cabal—or the Covenant of Light’s members for that matter—that the forces of the Calling and the Song seem to be suspiciously familiar. More than one member of both factions have been disturbed by the possibility that though both forces are probably opposed, they might actually be manifestations of the same power.
As if all this potential conflict were not enough, the area around Stormreach has recently seen an influx of the strange drow who call themselves the Umbragen or the “shadow elves” in the drow dialect of Elven. As noted above, following the disastrous Quori-Giant War in which the ancient giants of Xen’drik won victory over the denizens of Dal Quor only through the use of tainted blood magics that shattered the jungle continent, the elves and drow took advantage of the chaos afflicting the beleaguered giant civilizations to rebel against their huge masters. To put down the rebellion of their slaves, the giants prepared to make use of their world-shattering magic once again, but to prevent this potential disaster, the dragons of Argonessen intervened and waged war against the giants. In the resulting clash, a group of drow fled underground into Khyber after the destruction of their city of Qalatesh by a storm of massive dragonshards (including the largest dragonshard in existence called the Heart of Siberys) that rained down from the golden Ring of Siberys. The underworld of the Dragon Below was filled with its own terrors, but nothing as deadly as the conflict between the god-like giants and dragons. After a long and dangerous journey, these drow refugees settled in a new city-state they established deep below the mountainous region of Xen’drik known as the Ring of Storms, the legendary home of the powerful elven necromancers called the Qabalrin who had once inhabited Qalatesh alongside these drow and other elves. In their struggle for survival, the dark elves uncovered the ancient lore of the Qabalrin and used this knowledge to tap a dark well of magical energy, what some believed to be the arcane powers of the god called the Shadow, which the drow named the Umbra. Over the course of generations, to enhance their own survival in the underworld of the Dragon Below, these drow, now calling themselves the Umbragen or “shadow elves,” performed terrible arcane rituals that bound their body and souls to the Umbra, blending this shadowy force with their own flesh and souls.
For thousands of years, the Umbragen held their own in the depths of Khyber, defending the realm they had carved out against all manner of monsters. Then in 997 YK, the balance of power in the region of Khyber beneath Xen’drik changed. A daelkyr known as Belashyrra, the Lord of Eyes, the creator of the race of beholders, awakened and stirred in the primordial dark and an army of beholders, mind flayers and other aberrations arose from the shadows at the fleshshaper’s command. The doom of the Umbragen was at hand. Slowly, the dark elves began losing the battle to the flesh-shapers forces and their outlying citadels fell one by one to the aberrations as the daelkyr’s horde closed in on their home. In desperation, the Umbragen dispatched agents to the surface of Xen’drik to search for anything or anyone that could be used as a weapon against the aberrations of Khyber. Some of these agents even now are secretly abroad in Stormreach seeking for something, anything, that could be used to save their imperiled civilization.
Finally, deep beneath Stormreach sleeps the fiendish Overlord known as Sakinnirot, the Scar That Abides. This rakshasa rajah has lain dormant for long millennia, but the growth of Stormreach’s population since the end of the Last War and the extensive excavations beneath the city being conducted by House Kundarak’s dwarves have begun to weaken the ancient arcane prison that contains this incredibly powerful being. Should the Scar That Abides awaken once more, all the world's attention may be focused on Stormreach and Xen’drik.
998 YK