Its history stretches back to the dim dawn of creation and the world's first rulers, the dread reptilian Kthoi, the Thunder Lords, the Great Grey Beasts from beyond time.  It encompasses the wars between them and the first true men, the Rune Weavers.  The victory of the Rune Weavers and their subsequent half million year rule would come to a conclusion when the Titans (old allies of the Kthoi) and the new borning Star Powered Mages joined together to fight The Great Night War.  This conflict raged for about 20,000 years, and though the Titans and the Star Powered ones were nearly annihilated, the Rune Weavers themselves were so decimated that they were no longer a major force in the world and slowly faded from the ken of Almanity.

The next 3000 years were relatively peaceful, allowing the Free Mages of the Circle of Light to predominate the guiding of the planet.  That ended with and interstellar war (caused by allowing an influx of starfaring races, beings, and creatures) that left the fifth continent (the planet's largest), and most of civilization a fused, radioactive ruin.  The Dark Years (or Interregnum) followed, lasting some 10,000 years as the survivors shifted their remnants to the third continent (the world's second largest and the wildest) of Khoara.  Many nations rose and fell, to hold and then to lose power on Khaas and the world was now called (the old name for it, Ssass-Khaa, being long forgotten).

Civilization struggled up out of the long night once more, set back at times by war and natural disaster, but ever upward did it go.  However, the real problems began when the College of Sages in the country of Falohyr discovered that an area of transtemporal and interdimensional instability had manifested itself in the area roughly contiguous with the small Elven Kingdom of Arduin.  As word of this discovery spread more and more nations plotted to overthrow the kingdom, realizing that whoever controlled the area and the newly discovered "Gates" also controlled not only this world but perhaps untold thousands of others as well.

Thus the bloody Wars of When (also called Nexus Wars) began.  The strife lasted for 10,000 more years, once again bleeding the world white of population and magik.  During a particularly long pause in the conflict, some of the warrior nations proposed what later became known as the Accords of Arduin, which would essentially guaranteed that the Arduin nexus would forever be an independent and totally neutral kingdom with its territorial integrity guaranteed by every nation - to further insure that no one nation could control it.  Thus each nation would send a contingent of soldiers (dependant on population) so that about 50% of the Arduinian military would always be non-Arduinian.  The troops would be rotated every seven years so that the soldiers could return home and so that they would not become too attached to Arduin itself.  To insure that the rulers of Arduin would not abuse their trust, the mages, sages, priests, alchemists, technos and all of the other important groups set up Colleges, Universities, and Guilds in Arduin which would oversee the study and exploration of the nexus and gates.  With few exceptions this plan has worked, so that 1300 years have now passed with no single nation ever risking re-igniting the Nexus Wars.

As most of the original population had perished in the early wars, each nation was called upon to send an equal number of settlers (1500) to replenish it.  For the first 500 years of the colonization it was forbidden to marry anyone of one's own nationality.  This insured a true melding of the people, and although it has long been stricken from the lawbooks, tradition still keeps it a habit for most of the people.  In fact, many of the early settlers and their descendants chose to marry outside their own race as well!

There is also a tradition still in force that one of the Royal ruling pair (King or Queen) must be non-Arduinian.  This was to insure "fresh blood" to a royal line that had started for scratch, was make up of every nationality, was "of the world " and not an inbred and arrogant line of rulers.  Thus we now see a kingdom of people that reflects the entire world around them.  A kingdom were slavery is outlawed (one of the few places were this is so) and people have more personal freedom than anywhere else does.  It is the center of learning for all disciplines and the various colleges and universities accept students from all corners of the Multiverse.  There are old prejudices, to be sure, but at least the people try to live together.  So it is the Orcs and Elves will sometimes travel together, Dwarves and Men drink toasts and all people truly feel free to be themselves.
 

Yet, because it is a nexus, there are still wild and terrible places that have been untamed and present since the beginning of time.  There the dread and awesome creatures of the Olden Dark that still dwell and occasionally venture forth to do harm to those who would usurp "their rule" of this land has always known their kind.

It is at once a shining example of all that is good in the world, and a chaotic and dangerous "frontier".  It is Arduin.  No capsule history of Arduin would be complete without a retelling of those events, which led to the beginning of the Nexus Wars.

THE ELF-HUMAN WARS

His wisdom was well-respected, and his subjects had not long to wait before an ultimatum arrived, borne by a dust covered messenger from the kingdom of Morvaen, their eastern Human neighbor.  It demanded that the people of Arduin become as one with the people of Morvaen so that together they could rule all the nexus lands.  King Tarafass sent the messenger flying home with the reply "Arduin has been Elven since even before the Dark years and Elven it stands or dies.  Take us if you can!"

The first battle was joined in a pass in the Brass Mountains called "The Trumpet's Throat".   The Morvaenian pikemen led the storm of the small keep that guarded the pass, and of survivors there were none.  Rushing through the pass, the army of Morvaen spilled out onto the Plains of Paranon in the tidal wave of terror that left no stead unburned, no field untrammeled.

As the invading horde poured into the beautiful Forest of Flame, there was no thought of anything but victory in the minds of the three generals who lead them; that is until Arduin's first line of defense make itself known.  The archers who waited that fateful day were as invisible as the very air about the wondrous trees that they called their home.  Invisible, that is, until their green glowing arrow rain sleeted into the ranks of the invader like a scythe through ripe wheat.  And, like falling stalks of wheat, a grim red harvest was reaped, and reaped, and reaped yet again.  Stunned but not beaten were the veteran pikemen of Morvaen, retreating and then reforming, gathering their arbalesteers about them.  Putting their allies, the wild mountain tribesmen, to their decimated front, they went back into the forest, back into the rain of whistling green death. Nearly annihilated, the berserk hillmen nonetheless closed to bring their axes to blood amongst the green archers.  Outnumbered the tribesmen fell to the last man, but it was planned, for the time they thus gained had allowed the pikemen to do what no other force had ever before done; the green archers were overrun, outfought, and finally routed.  Yet even then the few who managed to get away returned again and again to send a shaft through and eye here, a whistling death to a heart there, in a continual harassment and vengeance that lasted the long night through.

With dawn a bloody blaze upon the treetops, and the ground a truer color to match, the invaders left the forest that would henceforth bear the name "The Weeping Woods".  Tired, battered, and angry with their lost thousands within the trees, they were shaken to their souls to hear the brazen wail of the great Elf horn.  For there before them, drawn up in their serried ranks of bronze, stood the Elven spearmen, and in a thin advanced line, there too stood the remaining archers in green.  As their cries of dismay whirled in their generals' ears, the great horn again sounded and with mighty shouts the Elven Host charged down upon them!

To give them credit, those pikemen rallied as best their short time allowed and met the onrushing wall of spears with some semblance of order.  Let no one belittle what those men did that day.  The fight raged seven hours and never once was quarter asked or given.  The end came as the last of the invader generals decided that he should be away.  So gathering about him three of his bloodied and battered regiments, her retreated into the woods, commanding those that remained behind to guard his rear with their lives.  This they did, and well, For no Elven spearman or archer followed for another two hours.  They sold their lives dearly for those precious moments, yet it was all for naught.

As the wily general retreated, pushing men already near collapse to even greater exertion, he was already planning his return with a new army to exact a terrible revenge upon those who had so humbled him.  With these thoughts, he led his men back to the Plains of Paranon and toward the pass they had so bravely won the day before.  Halfway there his heart went cold and his mind's eye saw its own death there before it.

For the Elven king himself was before them, blocking the pass to safety with his Golden Knights of the Dawn.  Shaking off his fear, the general turned to his men and called to them in ringing tones of iron "Once more, my brave ones!  Between safety and us is the King himself and his guard.  They number but 500 and we are near to 3000!  For Morvaen and glory!"  And his men, heartened, took up his cry and rushed forward up the slope.  The silver-throated trumpet of the Golden Knights called its answer ringingly back, and, as the Knights charged to meet the army, the glamour fell from the many thousands of silver-mailed cavalry that had been magikally hidden and that Host too thundered down to death and glory.

What followed was not such stuff as ballads are woven form.  Indeed, it was naught but red butchery.  Tired unto exhaustion, outnumbered and struck front and rear, the pikemen fell in three screaming minutes.  And one of the last to fall was the general, his great sward whirling about him, a fiery curse upon his lips; and the invaders were no more.
 
 

So, you say, the Elves won the war.  But wrong you are, for this was the first of seven attacks in the next year.  Twice the iron grey cataphracts of Viruelandia surged up from the south, twice the breastplated infantry of Falohyr stormed through the northwest passes, again came the grim and vengeful pikemen of Morvaen and even a mercenary army of Uruks, Orcs, Goblins and Trolls numbering some 30,000 in total tried to batter its way to ownership of Arduin.  All failed except the seventh and last assault, which came through alone of the very gates that the Elves were trying to protect.  A horde of ebon warriors with eyes of flame and hearts of stone ravaged into Arduin from beyond time itself.  From a dying earth the Deodanths came in their thousands, they're flickering swords a match for even Elven blades.  Arduin was doomed, but none thought of surrender.

In 13 days they had conquered all but the great Keep of the High king, which along stood to defy their dark evil.  And in all the land a horror started that to this day Elves will not speak of, but will stand white-lipped and clench-fisted with memory, possessed of a hate that will outlast time, and in its relentlessness find its way to the very end of the world where it will surely take its final deadly revenge. Yet, though to most it surely seemed so, all was not lost, as the king was now marshalling those forces which till now he had withheld: The awesome forces of "Faerie", the power of Elven magik.

And so they rode out on the 27th day after their last battle, those few remnants, the Elven 7,000.  They road to the great King's plain to the east of Thousand Thunder Falls where the main army of the black ones awaited them with mewling derisive laughter.  The ebon ones attacked first, nearly flying forward with their 30-foot leaps, their slim swords whining before them, their catlike battle wails seemingly sending the clouds themselves fleeing from the skies in abject terror.

Before the first ebon killer had closed even half the distance, a great sound arose, accompanied by a cold, wild wind that swirled about the Deodanth horde, leaving a rime of ice upon their hearts: Faerie power had come.  The sky seemed to buckle and a blue twilight settled about the battlefield as the weird and ancient music sang its song of Elven power.

Hesitating in their headlong charge, the black slayers from beyond time were suddenly caught up in a force they could not understand and flung from one side of the battlefield to the other.  It was as if some vast and unseen hound had impaled them in its jaws and was worrying them as it would a squealing rat.  With shocking sudden swiftness, it was over.  The plain seemed to erupt in a vast fountain of steaming black blood and blasted brains, covering the surrounding countryside with the withering stain that would take three centuries to fade.  The few hundreds that had held back and thus lived immediately fled in all directions, bringing to motion for the first time this day the small Elven army.   "This is bladework, my brothers" spoke the king, and spurred his mount after the fleeing and broken remnants of the once dread and powerful enemy.  His troops followed with a cold fire of retribution burning in their hearts. For two weeks the Deodanths were harried and slain, but not without loss, the greatest being the mighty Elven King himself on the last day of the year.

His mourning men laid him to rest where he fell, atop wind-whipped Sorrow Slate Mountain, forever after known as King's Rest.  Laid to rest near him were the eleven Deodanths that had ambushed him and been slain in turn by his guards, (though by the time they had arrived, the king had slain five of them himself before falling).  He had died as befits a true warrior king, in battle.  But when the king fell, so too did any hope that an Elven Arduin could truly have.

The news of the disaster that had befallen what had seemingly been one of Hell's own armies gave many a grasping and scheming monarch pause - at least for a little while.  And the daughter of the dead king, his only progeny, did declare, herself Queen of Arduin, and Warrior Queen of the last true Elves.  So Arduin stood with an inexperienced Queen to guide an army of but 5,800, a sad remnant of that once proud host that had filled the King's Plain from one side to the other with its mithril-mailed might.  And the Human wolves gathered round their borders in increasingly bolder numbers.

Thus Tarathala Dawnstar, queen and warlord, decided that if force of arms alone could not hold Arduin, they should follow the path pointed to by the hand of her dead sire; the path of magik and elder lore, the road to gods and demons, the trail to tears and danger.  Some of her advisers protested that to fight with magik was to invite magikal attack in return. But those voices were few and small amid the clamor for defense.  For where there is no hope, there is also no concern for any consequence regardless of its severity.  So it came to pass that the Elven kind in Arduin became once again wizards as well as warriors, and for 99 years they reigned supreme in their ability to wreak havoc among their foes.  But each year it became harder to maintain this ascendancy as the Human and inhuman foes of Arduin also became adept in those arts that invited doom and destruction.  And ever close crept the wolves of final, irrevocable defeat.

As the first day downed of the hundredth year since the beginning of these wars, all was quiet, with a hushed sense of foreboding, such as proceeds earthquake and hurricane.  The wolves had come to dine at last upon the bones of Arduin.

The entire Elven army, only 1100 strong now, and their 1900 dependants were gathered in the great keep "Fangalorn" on the edge of the Lake of Mists.  And around and about a silent host of over 100,000 men in cold iron looked up at the ramparts and awaited the order they knew would come: Storm and slay!  And order they knew would surely result in the deaths of full half their number, but just as surely in the total and final destruction of the hated Elven wizard-warriors who had for so long thwarted their ambitions.  Those ambitions had finally forced seven great and lesser kingdoms to pool the blood and steel of their armies in one common cause, to the completion of which they had fought their way there this day.  The fall of Arduin was upon the world.

I will not linger long on the battle that raged form the day's first dawning light to the cold, final stroke of a black and wretched midnight.  It is enough to know that the warrior queen fell at last as her innermost tower splintered and crumpled around her.  And as she fell, laughing, she saw for one last time the bodies of five slain kings abut her.  And she screamed to the high winds of Hell, "Though I feast in the halls of the dread elder gods this night, I will have as handservants before me these five kings!  As long as they serve me, then a curse to all that is thine and theirs and all who would served them! "  That cures haunts those royal lines to this very day, though this is a tale for another time.

As the last tower, already cracked and split, finally began to fold in upon itself, a great roaring began and the land trembled and shook.  The tower exploded and the land around its erupted as the very air itself shattered in a cacophany of fury seldom rivaled since that time.

Those 7,000 men who survived would forever remember that night and what they saw when the fiery spots left their eyes and the thick blue smoke finally cleared away.  Where the great keep had stood; where the mile-long promontory had been……was nothing!  The cold dark waters of the lake steamed and bubbled where the flower of Elvenkind had make its final, defiant stand.

Of those kingdoms, which had gambled all and won, there was only a fiery doom, as those who stood in the wings patiently watching swooped down like bloodthirsty vultures.  These now claimed what the others had so dearly won but where now too weak to hold.  And so it was for 10,000 years and more as each tried to take what the Elves had held so valiantly.  None ever held it more than seven years, and never again would Elf or Man ever truly trust or befriend one another.  Thus is the ending of the tale of the Elf-Human Wars and the beginning of what would become another dark and terrible age.