Atalantë Parasai

**Atalantë Parasai –** *A reconstructed history of the Elven Kingdom of the Parasai. The book is assembled piecemeal from several sources and the writing shifts from author to author. It’s clear the Rynassi Elves took great care in assembling the contents with each source carefully footnoted. Key Excerpts follow:*

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> In the age before the Adamashad, when the first mortal civilizations appeared, the forested region along the eastern cost of the continent was known as The Parasa. Named for the lineage of Elves that made the region their home, the idyllic landscape of primeval forest, rivers and lakes descending gently from the Barovian highlands to the banks of the Outer Sea. The harmonious rule of the Parasa extended through the upheavals and war or mortal kingdoms and the Parasa capital Áringfell stood along the shores of beautiful Lac Kellidar as a monument to order and truth. Even after the new order established in the Allonai, the Parasa remained unchanged and a beacon of the Fey across the northern continent.
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> Off the Eastern shores of Parasa, the island known today as Oa’Ostra was a sacred destination of the Elven people. In those days it was called Ortuva Gomad or “the Ascendent Community.”  Here the elves of Northern Mantea had built a grand temple complex called Galad Arvendor, a glorious place rumored to contain fixed portals to the Feywild and through to the lost realm of Arvandor itself. The Parasai were the Stewards of Ortuva Gomad, and their graceful sailing ships were enchanted with to pass through the wards that encircled the islands allowing only beings of pure fey lineage onto the sacred shores.
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> As centuries passed, a new threat took root in the bosom of the Parasa that their wisest seers never sensed. As new deities took interest in the mortals of Mantea in the Adamashad Era, a dark presence slipped through and took root. Generations passed and celestial order of the Adamashad settled, before this seed began to send out dark coiling tendrils seeking its own devotion amongst more depraved congregation.
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> An Elven Archmage named Exathanter was the first to hear the call. Parasai Historians note that he gathered the resources of the high courts to focus arcane divination on something he called H’aaztra, translated roughly to “He, Without Name”. Unable to discern the nature of this powerful disturbance in the weave, Exathanter gathered an expedition and headed South to the mountainous region of Barovia. Some months later however, Exathanter returned to Áringfell alone and shaken, a mere shell of the proud mage he once was. Making only short perfunctory visits to the families of his comrades, he said only that the forces in the Svalich Mountains were more than they could face, and he was either lucky or cursed to escape with what was left of his life. Soon after, Exethanter sequestered himself away to a village to the South named Tammanaeth, where he had converted his family estate to his arcane retreat.
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> His peers assumed this was perhaps the beginnings of the great wizard’s Period of Remembrance or Labelas Enoreth as the ancient elven ways called it. But his self-imposed exile did not quell the rumors and intrigue around his ill fated Barovian Expedition. The High Council of Áringfell sent emissaries to Tammanaeth to seek audience with the fallen mage and coax him back to the halls of Áringfell. But their efforts seemed doomed to the same dissolution. Underlings were sent back with invitations unopened, and only a select handful of the arcane emissaries were even granted an audience. Over the next few years a select group of names recur in the records of mages with repeated meetings with Exathanter. The histories of this period refer to abstract quests Exethanter extolled upon the few whom he gave audiences, searching the countryside and nearby human cities for a mysterious Yellow Sign; missions, it would seem, never fulfilled as no records or explanations of this fabled sigil remain.
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> Hotakyn, Neferon, Uralath, Yormith, and Ya-Thantoosh, all senior Parasai mages became repeated names in the records of years that followed. The only ones who could claim to have seen Exethanter’s face in decades, their prestige and prominence in royal courts increased. History tells how each mage consolidated power, eclipsing centuries old nobility and rising up more feared than respected. As war broke out in the West between mortal the mortal kingdoms of Leddig Slatte and Ra’Onitia, these five wizards grew to oppose the conservative ways of the royal court of King Neremyn.  It seemed the golden age of Áringfell Fey teetered on the brink its own power struggle as the powerful wizards each sought to position the favor of Áringfell to reap benefit from the neighboring conflicts. King Neremyn clung tenaciously to power demanding to maintain the sanctity of Elven neutrality in the ways of men.
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> Ultimately, tensions in the Parasa came to a boiling point. The five great wizards formed an alliance and stood before the High Council of Áringfell demanding that the forces of Áringfell ride forth under the banner of Leddig Slatte to end the War in the North. King Neremyn stood his ground declaring The Parasa will never sacrifice the old ways. But the die was cast. Hotakyn, Neferon, Uralath, Yormith, and Ya-Thantoosh told the court that they day would come when their union, The Fangs of the Veil would return to rule Áringfell in the name of Ctha Assatur and disappeared in an acrid cloud of amber mist.
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> This first reference to the Fangs was not the last. In the years to come, trade caravans disappeared and emissaries from the southern communities failed to meet their appointments in the Courts of King Neremyn. Worse, travelers that made it to the City on the Lake told horrific tales of communities in the southern reaches razed, only empty homes smeared with steaming yellow-ochre sigils remained. But the hostilities of the Leddig Slatte war reached further and further North these stories faded to rumor. The alliance with Artoverke was activated to strengthen the borders as the northernmost countries were now on the precipice of being pulled into the war.
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> But what seemed dark times became even darker for the Elves of the Parasa. Reports reached Áringfell outpost of Wizards seen visiting the war camps of Leddig Slatte. Riding mounts of wendigo and corrupted wilderness beasts, these wizards travelled under a black banner wrought with glowing golden runes proclaiming allegiance to The Fangs of The Veil. Scouts and diplomats brought back reports that the Fangs were spreading across Leddig Slatte and finding counsel all the way to the highest ranks of the Kingdom, while the ranks of the mortal armies swelled with grotesque beasts and monsters.
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> King Neremyn closed the borders and advised their partners in Artoverke and the Naizorai Elves that ruled the forests between Leddig Slatte and Ra Onitia to do the same. Scouting reports became infrequent, but what trickled through revealed that the Fang had established a partnership with the Leddig King Barov Von Drovis. Brokering safe transport of the Royal Family to a safehold and new capital in Barovia, and in exchange for untold sums The Fangs of the Veil promised to unleash their magic to bring down Ra’Onitia.
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> Late in the year 136 AN, the annals of Áringfell add little known detail to the horrific tragedy known across the norhtlands. Escorted by Leddig Slatte Brigades to the Eahdorn Valley, where the river had run red with generations of conflict, The Fangs of the Veil conducted a ceremony. The fallen soldiers of both sides rose from the earth and instead of fighting each other, turned their backs on the front lines and marched into the interiors of both empires. The rampage that followed, devoured both countries from the inside out. Leddig Slatte’s armies were destroyed within the first few days, and re-enforcements from across the great kingdom never appeared from the Northern strongholds. The hordes stormed across the land leveling hamlets and capital alike. Parasan emissaries sent by air and by magic to the elven tribes in the Naizora Wood between the warring kingdoms, but the requests from Áringfell went unanswered by their brethren from the west.
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> In Lharvon of a 137 AN, entries in the Áringfell history become scattered and frantic. While the forces of King Neremyn steeled the Western border against undead hordes, sudden reports of undead raiders increased across the southern forest lands. The Kingdom of Parasa was caught by surprise as the hordes flooded the cities and village from the South. Fearing the worst, King Neremyn declared a Royal Exile. The royal family boarded the Symania, their finest ship, and sailed for Ortuva Gomad to escape the promised return of the Fangs of the Veil. The last entry in the history was in Rhaan of 137. The last Elven historian signs off his watch with reports of howling in the streets of Áringfell and an elvish prayer for deliverance.
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> The closing chapters are drawn from secondary sources, Barovian scholars and Artoverkian Historians providing piecemeal epilogue for the region. As is widely known, The Naizorai fled to Hatterwol just before the cataclysm, and the Armies of the Caliphate rode North in Nymm of 137. Filled by the holy power of Lugh, they cleared the Eahdorn Valley, and split their forces. Half rode west into the adjacent high steps of Ra’Onita, while the other half drove the undead hordes North and East, in a strategy to crush them against the defenses of the Parasa. Pushed further through the former lands of Leddig Slatte, the Caliphate became bewildered. When they would hear the fights of arrows from the Parasa felling the horde ahead of them? Pursuing the forces of the Fang deeper and deeper in the woods east of the great Plaines, they lost the trail. Facing heavy losses against fierce storms and dense confusing fogs around the Svalich woods and mountains, the Caliphate pulled back. Returning to Hatterwol, they left the land for the Barovians to pick up the pieces, and the Parasa overrun with the undead that to this day plague the coast from the Parasa to the Forsaken Strand.
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> Local parlance over the years renamed the Parasa as “Parasa Padure”, or “The Fallen Fey.” No one knows what became of King Neremyn and the only scouting parties to return from Ortuva Gomad reported the island once rumored as the gateway to an Elven Paradise was now a cold black forest draped in mist and darkness, with hunched figures staggering through the shallows at the shore in the all too familiar gait of the dead. The island too has become renamed by the Artoverkian Ships that brave the waters as Oa’Ostra, or “Island of the Bones”.
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See also:

The Naizorai Exodus

Tuktalla Rynassai