ONE
Long ago, in another universe and another time was a
lonely planet tirelessly circling a pair of dancing stars. It was in turn tirelessly circled by a
triplet of moons and inhabited by a race of elves. For centuries, peace ruled the land and the
elves flourished. It became an utopia, and
the elves in unison with the gods gave birth to the magics of the world. The gods, pleased with the pureness of the
race they had created, ensured the race remained pure with no disease or
illness, and perfect elven children resulted of every birth.
But
then one day the peace came to an end and war erupted between the elven groups. One group of elves began to think themselves superior
to the others, and claimed domination over all the other elves of Quedäar, enforcing
their superiority with random acts of cruelty and violence against ‘lesser’
elven groups. At first, the uprisings
were small and localized, and as such it went unnoticed by the larger masses for
decades. But with each passing year the
violence increased until eventually the once united race became two warring factions—the
purist elves, and a new, violent group that referred to themselves as the drow.
The
goodly elves pleaded to their gods to help them in their time of need, but the
gods were disgusted by the evil they saw in the drow and turned their backs to
the elves as well. If evil could corrupt
a few, it could corrupt the many the gods believed, and so they left the two
races to solve their own problems and withdrew into the heavens. The drow began worshipping their own gods,
vile and demonic creatures that promised limitless power with their dark magic.
Without
the intervention of the benevolent gods the elves were unable to defeat drow,
and the war raged for nearly three hundred years, with no side able to swing
the tides of war in their favor. Even
though the elves greatly outnumbered them, they were unable to match the sheer
brutality and skill of the drow. Then
one day, by combining the dark magics with all of their wickedness, the drow
forged a sword, Nightblade, and with
it launched a full fledged attack against the elves. With Nightblade
the drow began to overcome the elven forces and the elves took heavy
losses. With the drow controlling over
half of Quedäar and nearly a quarter of the elves, all seemed lost for the
goodly race of elves.
Then
one night an unexpected event happened to the little planet known as Quedäar. With the elves defending one of their last
strongholds in what was later to become the Vashir Forest, Lightningstar, the
most powerful elven wizard in all of Quedäar, cast a spell against the
thousands of advancing drow. It was
meant to be a simple magic missile spell to take out the first dozen or so of
the advancing army, but at the precise moment he cast the spell the three moons
came into alignment with Quedäar, an event that only happened once every four
millennia. This awesome force of nature
caused the spell to mutate, and when it hit the frontline of the drow rather
than stopping as it should, it began jumping like the lightning the mage was
named after from soldier to soldier throughout the drow ranks. With one spell, Lightningstar had decimated
nearly half of the advancing army. With
the drow in shock from the sudden loss of so many warriors, the elven race
quickly defeated the remaining drow, and forced them into exile in the tunnels
and caverns miles below the Burning
Mountains
Upon
returning to the surface, the elves ventured back to the site of their victory
over the drow where they found the wicked sword amidst the fallen drow. Realizing that it was too evil to wield and
unable to destroy it, the elves took the sword to a cave at the foot of the
Burning Mountains and sealed it inside, never to be seen again. Upon the entrance, they placed magical wards
to prevent anyone from entering the cave.
Confident
that they had removed all evil from the surface world, they returned to the
site where Lightningstar cast his legendary spell, and a new kingdom was born amidst
the remaining trees of their forest. They named it Moonstar after the mage that
cast the spell and the lunar alignment that gave it its power. At the center of the city they built a new
monastery to honor the gods. They built
it with more magical beauty and splendor than ever before seen on Quedäar,
determined to win back the favor of their gods.
Day after day they prayed to the gods yearning for a reply to their
calls, and finally one day they got their reply in the form of a prophecy:
Forever broken is the trust between divinity and creation. From this day forth, only a chosen few with
unquestioned faith in the eyes of the gods shall be granted Divine audience.
The worshippers shall be granted power and eternity alongside the god they
worship, and the faithless and fraudulent shall suffer an eternity in the
hells.
That which hath tainted the goodness of the elves shall also taint the
health of thy race. From one race shall
come forth many to be scattered over the face of Quedäar, and Good shall fight
Evil for balance of power forevermore in all the realms.
The fate that hath befallen thy brothers shall be thy undoing. By forever casting them to a world of
darkness, thou shalt grow soft to their ways and thine descendents shall be
forced into war with them once again.
When once again thy brother is strong and Evil is prepared to reign, in
the land of the phoenix a half-breed in the clutches of evil will be torn
amongst two paths. If he chooseth the
path of light, the elves and all other goodly races will unite and deliver Good
to power once more. But lo, should the chosen one take the path to Evil and
descend into the darkness, the fate of the races is peril.
And
so the elves were left to survive on their own and rebuild the surface world
that had once been their utopia. As the
prophecy foretold, the elven race was plagued with impurities, and from these births
came forth new creatures to inhabit Quedäar.
For years, the elves watched as the beings that had come from them but
were so unlike them spread like wildfire throughout the land. In time, the creatures that were similar to
each other broke into separate groups and claimed regions as their own. Wars
over territory were brief and fierce, often with entire species being wiped
from the land.
With
new homes and newfound identities, these tribal groups became the ancestral
foundations for the humans, dwarves, giants, orcs, and many others. With the separation
of the races, the impure births began to slow.
Over time, the impurities went from one in every five, to one in every
hundred, then one in every thousand.
With the purity of elven births all but restored, the elves closed off
Moonstar from the outside world. The
ruling party of the elves worked to bury the darkness from their history, and
any further impurities were dealt with swiftly and secretly. Mention of the war against the drow was
strictly forbidden, and over time the war was nearly forgotten from the history
of Quedäar. The elves refused to
acknowledge that the other races on Quedäar shared common ancestry, and in time
that too was forgotten.
After
the Time of Impurity, as it was referred to in hushed whispers, the Elves began
to rebuild and expand the forest that had been destroyed during the
battle. As the centuries rolled on the
forest-kingdom of Moonstar grew, and it was difficult to tell where the kingdom
ended and the forest began. The city
walls that were once stone became overgrown with shrubs and vines until the
wall itself could no longer be seen.
Trees were grown inside the kingdom as well as outside, and soon the
trees were taller than the buildings of the city. Within a millennia, the true history of
Quedäar had been completely erased, the drow forgotten, and Moonstar lost to
the outside world in the forest.
Miles
below the surface of Quedäar, in the deepest pits of the darkest depths known
as the Underdark, after years of wandering through dark tunnels, the surviving
drow found a large cavern suitable for beginning a new empire. After decades of construction, the city of Methandoruzil was
complete. For several millennia while
the surface races forgot about their wicked cousins, the drow grew more and
more powerful. Worshipping the God of Death,
Kabal, the drow used their magic to control the demons of the hells. With the passing years, the drow began to
adapt to their subterranean way of life.
Their skin darkened from the golden color of the surface elves to a grayish
black, and they evolved infrared vision to see in the dark world around them.
While
the surface world was busy forgetting the drow, the drow were busy planning to
take revenge on the elves for banishing them.
Through his contacts in the hells, D’nar, king of the drow, learned of
the elves’ prophecy and the location of the ancient sword Nightblade in the Cave
of Shadows
