Based on Koen27's response to my previous post: (
https://www.warzone.com/Forum/762503-fantasy-map-epics) I have decided to start developing the lore of Valara, whenever I have the time. I have some stuff in a conversation that I will release later, but right now here is the first thing I wrote. This is the beginning of a short in-world document called "Since the Last Everday" by "Trelavus of Lyre." This is completely unedited, you shouldn't expect much more from a forum post, so expect some potential inconsistencies. I will get to the actual lore of the realms we see on the map later, and I will be using the same conceit... later. So, here is the beginning of the lore of Valara.
Since the Last Everday: By Trevalus of Lyre
To Nigrel, my dear publisher.
I understand that the humans want a shorter history than the one I have to offer. I wish you had the time to truly appreciate and read the work I did. “But it would take a lifetime to scribe it all out!” You say. Oh you say it, your silly lifetimes are so short. But I do see that maybe you do have a point, after all I have been writing this history while your great great grandfather was yet unborn. It was also, as you know, a simple new edition of older works of mine. I have always truly loved to write the history of our world, at some times I almost think I’m a spirit, how else could my desire be so insatiable! But alas, I am only an elve, or so it is for now. Also, to address your second complaint, I know you don’t like the fact that the history tries to cover information from every single great cycle I can remember. “Absolutely nobody cares about the history from ninety-thousand years ago! How do we know it is real anyways! I can’t scribe all that!” Oh you’re such a bore. How would you possibly understand the underlying pattern of the great cycle you are in without comparing the current day to as many examples as possible! I do not understand it! Don’t you believe that somebody among you mortal men would want to know! But, I guess he can ask me if he really wants to know. Whatever my complaints about the matter, here is your shorter history, it should be fit for human lifetimes.
Prologue: Before the Last Stilling
I can’t entirely ignore the great cycles of the past! Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve lived through five of them! Us elves count these cycles as you count days, dwarves count them as you count years, but they are not all of the same length, not even close. According to the oldest records I could find in Verdalliere, the shortests of these cycles lasted only twenty years, the longest known lasted 280,000 years. That longest cycle was the 53,982nd cycle after the birth of the elves. There have, so far, been 196,883 such cycles which have spanned many thousands of millions of years. I truly wish I could cover them all, but even among the elves the history of the earliest cycles is lost, especially here in Verdiallarie. Nonetheless, I will only briefly summarize what you maybe think is most important about the broad scope of this deep history.
Firstly I will begin by explaining what the great cycles are. I know many of you humans do not believe in them, for some odd reason. Sure they are too long for you to even imagine, most of the time, but their effects are very real. Think of it like a day. Every day you see the sun rise and the moon rise in a continual cycle. As the sun remains in the sky the world is warmed, when it is hidden the earth cools and is covered in darkness. So to the strength of the sun, the length of the day, and the influence of the moon waxes and wanes through the ages. These waxings and wanings create the great cycles. Though each day is measured from morning to morning, the great cycles are measured from noon to noon, when the power of the sun is greatest, for in those times the sun will make war upon the earth and the whole world will be burned up in the battle. Some places can survive and, when the power of the sun fades, these islands of life can reach out in order to reclaim the barren earth.
Over the many ages that have come and gone lands have shifted, refuges have changed, and cycles have changed. I hear that some in Xoria wrongly think that this cycle of the seasons causes the same ages to be spit out by the wheel of life over and over again, everything is always the same they say. These men are foolish and wrong, they should listen to the elves. Just like the seasons of the year, the great cycle provides a foundation of change upon which the societies of elves, dwarves, dragons, and men are based. Change has happened over the ages, great changes, and afew of the biggest changes can be summarized here.
During the age of the first cycle it is said that elves were mortal and that, during this time, magic had not yet entered the world. However, elves eventually gathered such great power that they defeated death itself, conquered the stars, and even ruled over spirits. However, one day we waged war upon a power greater than ourselves who destroyed us and wholly reshaped reality, and so the great cycles were established.
Over the course of endless ages we would continue to fight this dark one in the new world he had formed, the senseless mass he had made, and eventually we would somehow bind up his power. This was the second cycle.
His darkness would seep out, men would be turned into spirits, shadow envelop the earth, and this was the third cycle. He would cover the earth in darkness forty-thousand times, and each time it would be un-shrouded.
Then the dark one brought the earth to a standstill, and this was the first ever-day. The earth, which once spun, could not be moved, so the elves built a great chariot for the sun, they caused it to go around the earth, ending the everyday. Since that time, when the earth was shrouded in darkness, the charioteers of the sun would draw close to the earth in order to dispel the darkness, but as they drew close they would burn the earth, slowly, but surely, until the day came where they rode away to let the darkness cover the earth again.
In the 53,982nd cycle the Dark foe exerted all of his efforts in an attempt to conquer the sun and the moon. The fact that his power was directed away from the earth is why this cycle lasted so long. Some say that, eventually, he won. However if he won it is not clear why he has not destroyed the earth already! It seems that if he did ever gain a foothold, the battle for the sun and moon must still be going on to this day!
In the 72,933rd cycle the sun would only briefly turn away from the earth before baralleling back to it. Many believe that it was at this critical period that the dark foe truly conquered the sun and turned it against the earth, but clearly he was beaten or else we would have been destroyed. It was unfortunate that men were not alive at that time, if they were they would have lived in a cycle they could truly comprehend! This cycle lasted a mere twenty years.
After this time the most important changes actually have to do with the species which ruled over the earth. As you know the elves did rule the earth from the beginning, however dragons are also so old that their origin is lost to the mist of time. There were not just wars between good and evil, light and dark, there were wars between elves and dragons. Nobody know when the dragons were ascendant, though it is reasonable to assume that, at one time, they were ascendant because of how prevalent they were in recent great cycles, but they are not ascendant today. Dwarves were never ascendant, but their first appearance was recorded in the 92,382nd great cycle.
It is said that the power of the dark began to fade after the 100,000th great cycle.
Finally, humans only appear in the historical record in the 157,993rd great cycle, and this is where the story gets truly interesting. You see, humans have this weird quirk, they are truly mortal. Elves, we could almost live forever if we wanted to, and Dwarves, they do die… After thousands of years. But you humans only live sixty odd years, strange things you are, more like the cattle, or atleast that is how the ancient elves thought of you for they used humans in war, you were cannon fodder. They mixed with you to make half-elven children, long-lived warriors who were nonetheless infertile and still only bugs compared to the elves.
But then you separated from us. In the 173,248th cycle, a new dark spirit appeared by the name of curiosity. He had caused the moon to eclipse the sun for two-thousand years. A small land called Umbria was covered by the shadow of the moon, but what was not covered was burned to a crisp save for the half of the earth that was covered by the earth itself. This land was in perpetual darkness and was ruled by the shadow. On the rim between the greater shadow and the everyday stood the smallest sliver of elves, dwarves, dragons, and humanity. Nobody knows exactly how the spirit of curiosity fell, but it is said that humans ultimately achieved the victory and, for a brief moment, gained some sort of self-determination.