(EE) Brief History of the Emerald Elysium

The history of the land now known as the Emerald Elysium seems to follow a cycle. Every 10,000 years or so a revolution takes place. Those changes have taken place twice within tales of history told in the Emerald Elysium.

The "first kingdom" as it is sometimes called, considered the first only because only the gods themselves know if anything came before it, was a land ruled by the dragons. They lived out in the open, flew through the skies without concern and did as they pleased. By all accounts this was a peaceful time. The only humanoids that exists at the time were the ancestors of the Giants who were subservient to the Dragons.

And then came the Trolls. Not cursed and wretched forms that they are known as today, but the True Trolls. Eight foot tall, powerful paragons of beauty and power, brimming with unmatched arcane powers with a mastery over the elements themselves. No story told even suggests where they might have come from or why they rose up against the Dragons, but they did.

The Trolls struck with precision and fury, devastating the Dragons before they could even organize themselves and begin a war. In order to fight the Trolls, the Dragons created the Draconic races to serve as their soldiers in the war. But their forces were not enough, the Trolls destroyed the Dragons and drove the survivors into hiding far from the new Troll Kingdom. The Dragons used the last of their strength to scorch the land between the heart of the Troll Kingdom and the mountains their leaders took refuge in. That land is still a desert today, known as the Dragonswrath Desert.

With their enemies vanquished, the Trolls went about shaping the land to their design. Although they formed a caste system among themselves, they found they needed even more workers for many specialized tasks. They created many races known to this day as demi-humans to serve as their slaves. Ogres were created first from the Giant to serve as beasts of burden. From the Ogres, Humans were created to build their structures, carry their messages and tend to their livestock. Dwarfs were created to work their mines and forge their metals. Gnomes were created to serve as their craftsmen and artisans for small detail work that Troll hands were simply too large to do properly.

The Trolls also did deep research to expand and deepen their magical powers. It was this that proved to be their undoing. After about 10,000 years of unchallenged rule, on one of their experiments they managed to rip a portal between this world and that of the Feywild. Through the portal poured pure fey energy, both light and dark, and that energy took on forms. It was in this way that the Sidhe and the first Goblins came into this world. They almost immediately assailed the Trolls and though they were small in number at first, the Trolls could not find a way to close the portal and their numbers grew. They set the slaves free and rallied them into fighting against the Trolls.

In order to combat this growing menace, the Trolls created one final race. Infusing humans with the blood of the lowest caste of Troll, a new race called the Orcs was given shape. Physically powerful, fast to breed, fearless and immensely violent, the Orcs should have been the perfect weapon to use against their Fey enemies. And they did indeed finally find a way to close the portal. Yet, despite this the fey still found some way to win the war, take the heart of the Troll Kingdom and place a horrific curse upon the Trolls, transforming the entire people from their previous forms of perfection into the twisted monsters that exist today.

The Sidhe, stuck forever in this new world, decided to forge a new kingdom in the place of the Trolls. They gave their word to the former slaves that so long as they obeyed the Sidhe, they would be protected and all would be peaceful and good. The goblins were driven into the darkness where they belonged and though this paradise, this Emerald Elysium, has always has threats brewing around the edges that occasionally seeped within, the Sidhe have more or less kept their word. The kingdom has known peace for the past 10,000 years.

But just as the dark reign of the Trolls ended after 10,000 years, the ever-growing threats to the stable peace seem to be threatening to rip the Sidhe's rule as well. If this happens, will the "fourth kingdom" be one of darkness or one of light?