From the very beginning, there existed the Aether. All of Ezrahn is formed from the Aether. From its swirling maelstrom stepped the first of the Gods and Goddesses. 

A being of temporal energy and magick first began to shape the mass of Aether into something resembling land. Infusing the newly formed rock with the essence of Magick itself. 

Light came, bringing life to the barren world. This being nurtured the plants and animals springing from its breath. 

With Light, comes Darkness, but not a cruel and foreboding entity. The being took the life that extinguished, passing it back into the Aether to be reborn. Ensuring that the cycle continued and that the chaotic forces within the Aether were kept in check. 

The Darkness was not without fault, and one day, it faltered, distracted by the beauty of the land. The Aether raged, spewing forth a being of Cruelty and Torture. 

This Cruelty claimed a race of people in the northern part of the land. It twisted them, giving them a lust for blood and conquest. These changed creatures brought war and death to the people of the south alongside gigantic beings of Ice, Stone, Fire, and Storm. 

Banding together, the other races fought back when they’d only known peace. They survived famine when they’d only known feast. Using the people’s resolve and faith, the other three beings pulled power from the Aether and created a being to stand against the Cruelty. 

Battles raged on the field below as the two sides fought in the skies. The being, with a keen mind for War and a sense of Honor gifted by the others, quickly took the offensive. Cruelty was driven back to the North, taking most its people with it. 

In those early centuries, the beings were more energy and will, until the people recognized them, giving them a place of reverence in their lives. The being of Magick, who shaped the original landmass of Ezrahn from the Aether, they called: Woldram, The Learned One. The being of Light and Life they regarded highly, giving the name Tessahl, or The Green Mother. The Darkness, while feared by mortals as the end of all, they called Sephter. 

The being of Cruelty became known as Ock’Thall. The Orc Father grew his numbers in the wasteland created in the North. He pitted his tribes of Orcs against each other, allowing the strongest and most vicious to thrive. Sotestari, as the God of War was called, gathered the hardiest of the human peoples, arranging them across the border with Ock’Thal’s lands. He blessed these kingdoms with strength and extended lives to serve their constant vigilance against the inevitable orc and giant invasions.

Through it all, the Aether swirls, watching, held in check by the immortal Gods and Goddesses of Ezrahn.

– As written by Archmage Callidus Praxis
“The Creation of Ezrahn”

Ezrahn is born from the ashes of centuries of conflict. While Archmage Praxis was correct in his somewhat loose history of the realm, there are details relevant to the scholars of today he either left out, or was ignorant of. My job is not to discredit his accomplishments, but to expand upon them with the benefit of further study and research.

The forces of Chaos, led by Ock’Thall and other Immortal beings, drove the Giants, Orcs, and other monsters against the rest of the realm not solely for conquest, but to open a way to allow Chaos itself to consume the power held within the very fabric of Ezrahn. If this were to occur, we would all cease to exist, despite claims that Chaos would reward its followers. The Chaos Wars, as they are now truly called, could come again if we were to fail to remain ever vigilant against their powers.

In the wake of the Chaos Wars ending, new alliances and peoples staked out their lands and began to try and rebuild from the ashes of war and the prejudices of the past. Many Giantkin settled on the eastern slopes of the Doreagor Peaks, in a volcanic region they came to call Osiris. A civilization of Elves, who bemoaned the constant warfare and sought peace by giving ground in an effort that the invaders would be sated, became corrupted by the Lesser Immortal Ciarnyx and became the Pale Elves, sequestered upon their darkness shrouded plateau of nightmares. Ships arrived from southern islands, now captained and crewed with a people quite unlike their human ancestors. The Salkier, changed by the mineral springs on the islands they found themselves crashed upon in their fleeing of the Chaos War, have flourished. They have established themselves as the premier masters of the seas upon their specially built ships.

But not all was to be peaceful. The Elven people found themselves splintered, with two factions coming to terms with their new situations and neighbors. The Dwarven people, now thrust into the Above with the Ascension caused by Bodvarrk’s ringing of the Anvil of Creation, rebuild their underground tunnels and established trade of their mineral wealth for luxuries they had never seen before. Nations of Humans rose and fell under the eye of their longer lived neighbors. Orcs, free of their creator’s bloodlust, established their own settlements and traveled the world. A group of Gnomes, masters of artifice and invention, settled on the eastern lands.

All too soon, trouble arrived from the west. The Chromatic Dragonflights landed upon the western shores, claiming territory and subjugating the races of Ezrahn. As they carved their kingdoms from the lands and established their dominance, they brought their Scions, tall, dragonlike humanoids beholden to their overlords. The DragonKings and Queens established their rule and control.

The people resisted, and called out for help to the Immortals. The Immortal Platinum Dragon Tayvren led the Metallic Dragonflights in an effort to expel the Chromatics from the land. With their own Scions, and the Platinum Axolians, war raged across the realms again. In the end, Tayvren faced down the Ancient Red Queen Cindesta, though the battle nearly cost the Platinum Immortal her own life. As the Chromatic Dragonflights fled west to their Isles and the lands beyond, only one remained openly in possession of their lands. The Ice Queen, a terrible White Dragon, huddled within her frozen palace in the Glacial Wastes. Tayvren, healed by the sacrifice of her most loyal followers, led the Metallic Dragonflights away, to stand guard against further incursions from the Chromatic.

Many of the Scions, broken free from their masters on both sides of the war, settled in the plains west of the Trahaearn Mountains. While some sailed back to their Isles, not knowing any other life. Those who stayed founded the Nation of Moulon, honoring the forgiveness given to them by the other races and working to establish a nation of acceptance and freedom.

So began a new phase of Ezrahn’s history. A time of rebuilding and advancement that not all heeded the lessons of the past. Delving deep into the primordial forces of the planes, the Sorceror Kings and Queens of Rahksis opened gateways to the elemental planes. Eventually, their lust for power they could draw from these planes caused them to draw too deep, destroying their lands in an apocalyptic convergence of the planes. The Torn Peninsula, as their lands became called, gave birth to the Elemental Lords and Ladies, transforming their people who failed to escape into the Elementlings. The Towers of Rahk and their monastic order sought to contain the gateways to the peninsula, and so an uneasy truce has been formed.

Another great explosion would cause ripples of earthquakes felt as far west as Nishwam and the Trahaearn Mountains centuries later. The Gnomish nation of Cogear would be consumed in an explosion of Aether. The forests and grasslands of their land would wither and become sand, their survivors fleeing west towards the lands of what is now Bealck. A great fissure opened up, separating the land from the Great Desert that had always existed far to the east.

Historians of Nishwam’s Academy Magicka, as well as the Lorekeepers of Woldram, know that any peace is temporary. There will always be those with the lust for power and domination over their fellows. The archives of both organizations have survived Chaos, Dragons, war, famine, and the rupturing of the world itself. They all warn of the possibility of further conflicts for the control of Aether and the world come to be called Ezrahn.

So, heed my words reader, Peace is an illusion, a temporary daydream of the hopeless romantics. The shadows always hold the eyes of Chaos, and any others who would seek to claim the power of Aether and reshape the world to their liking.

I ask you then, will you be a hero and challenge the shadows that threaten the land? Will you stand idly by? Hoping some other hero will answer the call and become the legend that delivers the land from darkness? Or, will you join the grab for power, a deep desire burning you to claim the lands as your own?

– Loremaster Kellin Brast, Bard
Member of the Loremasters of Woldram