The elves were the first intelligent race to inhabit the continent now known as the Putarrha, which means Sorrow’s End in their language. They arrived about 108,000 years ago when they were forced to flee their homeland in the face of a powerful onslaught by a race known as the Gith. The elven king, known as the Lord of the Starlit Realm led his people across many dimensions as they sought to evade their foe. Many elves were lost during these years of flight and, it is speculated, the elven race may have died out altogether had it not been for the fact that the Gith finally gave up the pursuit in favour of an uprising against their masters (a race the known as the Mindlords). So after a thousand years of terror and death, the elves found a home in Putarrha.
The elves proliferated and spread out to the farthest reaches of Putarrha. For a time they dwelt in peace for there were no other civilized races on Putarrha. There did exist many human cultures, but these were nothing more than savage barbarians. Hobbits also existed, but they too were nothing more than another barbarian culture, albeit a diminutive one.
The first advanced culture to arrive on Putarrha after the elves were the gnomes. They were born, literally, of the earth and were first seen by the Drow, an elven sub-culture who inhabited the underworld mining precious gems and even more precious metals (mithril and adamantite). The gnomes were not very numerous and accepted the elven king as ruler of Putarrha.
Shortly after the arrival of the gnomes, a civilized human culture was discovered deep in the Desert of Desolation near the exotic anomaly know as Skysea. This desert culture was not large, numbering about 5,000, but the role that they would play in the future history of Putarrha was immense. Even though these civilized humans were of the same race as the savage barbarian humans, the elves thought of them as a different race and referred to them as Jarin.
Half a century later, the Drow sub-culture revolted against the elves of the upper world. This signaled the start of the War of the Spirit Masters.
The reason for the revolt is not clear. Many think that it was because the Drow had discovered a very rich vein of adamantite and, tired with their role as a peasant-class sub-culture, they aspired to rule over all the elves. Others claim that the revolt was inspired by the death of a very powerful Drow sorceress, by the hand of a gray elf, who was quickly raised to divine status after her death by the number of loyal followers among the Drow. Perhaps it was a mixture of the two for indeed the Drow had discovered a rich vein of adamantite and their battle cries usually invoked the name of Lloth, the murdered Drow sorceress.
The war lasted for 34 years. During this period many magical artifacts were forged by the elves to combat the Drow. None, however, were as powerful as the soul gems, forged by the Jarin. And it was because of these soul gems that the Drow eventually lost the war (c.f. The Legend of the Soul Gems) in the final Battle of the Soul Gems.
Although it was the Drow who lost the war, the power of the elves was also broken and never again did they regain their former glory. After the war, the elves split up into many sub-cultures and lived in small tribes in widely scattered areas of Putarrha. Some traveled to the far north and became known as the Snow Elves (c.f. Emladistar) while others traveled east to establish a community in what is now known as the Aelb-widu. |