The World is old, and most of it is remembered badly. What follows is what the peoples of the Realms tell of themselves and of each other. Where two peoples tell it differently, both versions are given. Each race's own story is on its race page.
Before memory
The Trolls were here first, or at least they were here before anyone thought to write it down. They slept in the sea-cliffs of the western shore, and the first fisherfolk built their huts in the lee of what they took for boulders. Troll elders say the World was quieter then, and that the stone sang when the tides turned.
Then came the Long Winter. For a generation the snows did not lift. The hill-folk of the eastern ranges, who would become the Drow, went down into the warmth beneath Mount Ishiraki. Other peoples went south into the jungles, or simply died. Every chronicle in the Realms starts its count of years from the thaw.
The Old Kingdoms
After the thaw, three great powers grew up, and most of the World's quarrels still trace back to them.
- Unlith, in the dry south-east, was ruled by sorcerer-kings who traded in everything, including the services of things from beyond the stars. Its merchant houses survive as the Unlithians.
- Ruikhire, at the river-mouth, with its harbour district of the Lower Quays, was the greatest city of the World. Its bells could be heard a day's ride out, and its Ward of Bells was said to hold more scholars than the rest of the Realms together.
- The Khaphiiri, the jungle schools of the deep south, taught war as an art. Their Hegemon's curse made their descendants into the Echolalians, who now remember nothing of their own and mirror whoever fights them.
Between these powers the Peridians built their nations. Unlithian traders called them humourless; Khaphiirian raiders called them unbreakable. Peridians say that a nation which outlives three empires needs no other praise.
The Night of Silver
Four centuries ago the sorcerer-kings of Unlith bound the Daemons to fight their wars, and a hundred years later the Daemons killed every one of them in a single night. Unlith did not fall. Its merchant houses simply stepped into the empty towers and carried on trading.
The Unlithians learned one lesson from that night: read the contract. The Daemons learned another: every mortal has a price. The two peoples have done business ever since, and neither trusts the other. Unlithian children are told that a Daemon cannot lie, but it can let you misread.
Fire and salt
The present troubles began within living memory, with two disasters a generation apart.
The fire. Mount Ishiraki erupted, and the Drow city of Vael Nhur burned beneath it. On the slopes above, the people of the Ashcliffe lost their homes, their workshops and nearly everything they knew how to build. The surviving Drow told the world that the Ashcliffe had angered the mountain. The Ashcliffe, now Wanderers, have never believed it, and the ash-lands have been fought over ever since.
The salt. Then the Great Host of the Saltborn came over the Undying Ocean. Their landing at Harrow Sound woke the Troll-kin, who threw them back into the sea. Their second landing, the First Transgression, went further inland and sacked Ruikhire.
From the ruins of Ruikhire came two new peoples. Its homeless took the rubble for themselves and became the Freehomes. Beneath the streets, something pale had woken during the sack, risen to drive off the invaders, and named itself the Root of Ruikhire: the Mycellians. Both claim the city. Neither has forgiven the Saltborn.
Peoples of earlier Ages
The old chronicles also name Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and the Undead, whose restless remnant became the Revenants. They ruled in earlier Ages and hold no thrones in this one. Scholars argue over where they went. Some say they withdrew beyond the edge of the map; others say they are merely waiting. Nobody in the Realms believes they are gone for good.
The current Age
The chronicles record this as Age 3, but in the taverns it is already called the Age of Ash and Salt. Every people that shares the Realms in this Age has an old grievance against a neighbour. The Ashcliffe hunt the Drow across the ash-lands, the Freehomes and the Mycellians fight street by street for Ruikhire, and everyone with a coastline watches the sea for Saltborn sails. Meanwhile the Unlithians sell to all sides, and the Daemons quietly add names to their ledgers. How the Age ends is up to the houses that play it. See Current Age for its rules.