History of Astvanor

Before Tsaliora and Relatya retreated from the mortal realm, the nations as we now know them did not exist. The world was divided into the Drylands, the Wetlands, the Mountains and the Forests. The world was being created and expanded anew, and with it, came the troubles of Mortalkind.

Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Orcs began to bicker greatly among themselves, eventually splitting to stake claim over various parts of the world. What we would now call "High Elves" or "Sun Elves" settled in the south of Relvenala, in what we would now know as "Valnore." Then, however, it was an arid desert much like southern Striog and Kastvar. The Humans settled in the north. The Dwarves in the mountains of Tsandor, the Orcs in the south.

The Genasi had already staked claim to what would become Kastvar, however, at that point all they laid claim to is what is now the capital of Kirvar.

Little is known from this period. All that is fully understood is that when the races of Mortalkind were divided, the Sunken Ones attempted to lay claim to the Material Realm. The armies of Mortalkind rose and retaliated, with the cleric Alaeymena Thayerblossom sacrificing herself to end the war.

The Spring War was the war between the Armies of Mortalkind and the Sunken Ones.

Little is known about the war itself - only that when beings known as the Sunken Ones began to invade the material world, the denizens of Astvanor retaliated. Stories tell of a dark time, when the sun struggled to pierce through veils of shadow and darkness and the air seemed sapped of all warmth and heat. For months, crops withered and died under the relentless torment of these beings from another realm. Songs and myths passed down claimed these creatures could not be bargained with, they tell tale of shadowed monsters made of fear and fang.

Things, not people.

The war ended with the sacrifice of Alaymena Thayerblossom and the creation of the Springrest. What had once been an arid desert began to grow life anew after her death, remaking the landscape of southern Relvenala into something entirely new.

"The Lost Era" is not named because of a lack of sources or written materials. While it is true that little remains in terms of factual recounts of this period, the name derives from a sense of loss and absence during the era. Poems, songs, and stories that survive denote a particular sense of being lost without the Twins. Clerics, monks, and other devout felt abandoned.

Those well-trained in magic found themselves losing grasp over their own powers as the veil between material and magical thinned without the Twins to maintain it. Magical surges and droughts began to crop up across the world as aimless groups and people began to settle.

It was during this period, in 18 PW that the first institution for higher learning would be established in Striog. The Sprighostle School for Refinement and Education was established in order to take in those who felt misaligned, without purpose and teach them ways to better themselves. It still operates out of Cantor today, though it has been renamed the Sprighostle Institute of Learning.