Third Darkness

## The Rise of the Elder Kings

In 521, Waiqar Sumarion was defeated, but not destroyed. Within the mist-shrouded borders of his barony sat the dreaded fortress of Zorgas, modeled on the Black Citadel, within which he had languished as a prisoner. The leaders of Terrinoth erected a series of towers from which to keep watch over the borders of the Cursed Barony. However, they were mindful of the expense that had been lavished previously on the towers that overlooked the eastern wastes, towers they had yet to benefit from. The new towers were far more modest constructions, staffed by a meager body of guards.

### A Wounded Realm Heals

Waiqar launched no further invasion, but he still posed a threat, and he had wreaked awful damage upon Terrinoth. Where once there had been seventeen baronies, now there were fourteen, one of those being Waiqar’s cursed realm. The lands that had previously been the possessions of Barons Heronglade, Camford, and Irehythe were shared among the neighboring nobles, leading to a particular extension of the borders of Soulstone lands.

As time passed and a feeling of security began to return to Terrinoth, the Stars of Timmorran began to emerge from the places in which Lumii and his followers had hidden them. They slowly made their way into the treasuries of barons and the laboratories of wizards, and they were used in the workings of magical wonders. Some Stars of Timmorran even made their way to the Courts of the Latari, the Deeplord Halls of Dunwarr, and the Throne Room of the Lorimor Empire.

### Rise of the Free Cities

In the wake of the destruction caused by the Second Darkness, more cities throughout Terrinoth received the status of Free City. The barons initially resisted these developments, but they had lost face due to their indecisive actions during the Second Darkness. If they could not defend the cities, the cities would ensure their own protection. In time, Frostgate in the far north, Greyhaven with its famed university, the southern town of Riverwatch and its skilled riders, Vynelvale with its many followers of Kellos, and forbidding Nerekhall, were all granted charters modeled on that which was granted to Tamalir. Even Dawnsmoor, while still largely a settlement of shacks, commanded enough influence to be deemed a Free City.

Despite their waning influence, the Daqan Lords of this period oversaw increasing prosperity and freedom. The Dunwarr Dwarves shared in this good fortune, and they built many great mining colonies and strongholds across the mountainsides of the land.

### The Usurper King

In the early decades of the tenth century, infighting began to plague Terrinoth. The barons, while presenting the outside world with a united face, schemed against one another. Many of them sought to increase their own power by acquiring Stars of Timmorran for themselves or luring away talented sorcerers who were central to the glory of their rivals’ courts. Cooperation between the barons ground to a halt, and other than funding patrols to guard against resurgent enemies, they no longer pooled resources in the way King Daqan had hoped and encouraged for them to do.

In 936, hostilities reached such a point that the barons turned to warring with each other. These battles were cautious affairs, for the barons still felt it necessary to garrison Terrinoth against its many enemies, but sometimes a barony would send a portion of its military forces to attempt to conquer a neighboring barony. Then, in 941, Baron Cedrick Soulstone claimed the Kingdom of Terrinoth, dominating his rivals through a carefully orchestrated synergy of military action, political intrigue, and popular support. In particular, Soulstone promised a more open attitude with regard to the Stars of Timmorran, promising his allies and people that, were he to be made king, he would encourage more open and widespread use of those artifacts.

The members of the Council of Barons were unanimous in their opposition to Baron Soulstone, but he had the support of the Church of Kellos, the guildmasters and other leaders of the Free Cities, and the populace at large. Grudgingly, the other barons withdrew their opposition, and Soulstone held a lavish coronation in Vynelvale’s Grand Cathedral of Kellos.

King Soulstone became known as the Usurper King, for he soon abolished the Council of Thirteen and peacefully took over governance of the Free Cities. He still held councils with the other barons at Archaut, but he refused to sit in his old chair, taking for himself the massive throne that had sat empty since the death of Daqan. This move was seen as a grave insult to Daqan’s memory. Even Soulstone’s loyal supporters condemned him for this arrogance, claiming that the act invited ill fortune to Terrinoth. Whether they knew it or not, their words would prove true.

### The Wages of Greed and Complacency

Under Cedrick Soulstone’s rule, the degree of secrecy and security that had surrounded the ownership and use of the Stars of Timmorran broke down. They were traded for gold and used to engineer many public works and spectacles. Many of these still exist today, though sadly most are in poor states of repair or are only blackened ruins.

King Cedrick Soulstone passed away from a fever in 954. The new monarch, King Rhys Soulstone, shared his father’s taste for pageantry and shows of wealth. He planned a number of extravagant castles and holdfasts, the ruins of which can still be found throughout the country.

The extravagant use of the Stars saw all manner of miracles performed, including many feats of engineering, medicine, landscaping, and even statecraft. The ruling Soulstone line became especially adept in their use. Eleanor II, for example, was as renowned for her amethyst Star as she was for her exceptional battlefield prowess in the Great Goblin Uprising of 997. Her serene yet stern image can still be seen in the many gold coins minted during her days.

This wondrous period of history is known by many names. To some, it is the Time of the Elder Kings, a reminder that during this period, the lands of Elves, Dwarves, and Humans flourished. Trade and cooperation between the Dunwarr, the Latari, the Lorimor Empire, and Terrinoth peaked, and the treasuries of these nations grew fat with the profits of commerce and innovation.

Yet, in accomplishing such feats the seeds of catastrophe were planted, for overt use of the powerful and desirable objects gained the attention of a terrible foe. The Latari Elves do not refer to the Time of the Elder Kings, their own name is, sadly, more appropriate. They call this time “The Days before the Dragons.”

## The Last Darkness

The Kingdom of Terrinoth, the Dwarves of the Dunwarr Mountains, the Latari of the Aymhelin, and the Lorimor Empire had all grown wealthy from, and entirely dependent upon, the Stars during this time. These lands began to be referred to collectively as the Fair Realms, reflecting the fact that mutual standards of civilized behavior, rule of law, military alliance, and appreciation of wonder were shared between the peoples. Although denizens of Terrinoth might find life among the Elves difficult due to their aloof arrogance and inscrutable philosophies, or might abhor Dunwarr life for its grimy claustrophobia and bland food, they would be able to live in either place nevertheless.

However, the Time of the Elder Kings, along with all its times of harmony and seemingly easy prosperity, was about to come to a violent and terrible end.

### Dawn of the Dragon Wars

In 1024, several hordes of dragons invaded Terrinoth from Molten Heath far to the northeast. Their fiery arrival heralded the Third Darkness. These dragons were motivated by greed, for having heard so many tales of the Stars in common use for so long, they decided to win them for themselves. Margath the Unkind, Levirax, Baalesh, Zir the Black, Avox, and Gehennor each led a band of lesser drakes to attack a different part of the world. While these attacks were almost simultaneous, the dragonlords were not initially in alliance with one another, and they even sent portions of their hordes to attack the forces of rival dragonlords if they strayed too close. They were each simply out to collect as many Stars as they could.

The appearance of the dragon hybrids confirmed this approach, as these creatures were previously not seen in Terrinoth. They are said to have been the offspring of a being known as the Wyrm Queen, though some Greyhaven scholars hold that they are the result of cruel experimentations or forbidden magics. That they are the spawn of dragons is clear from their form. They have long snouts filled with sharp teeth, snaking tails, and thick scales that cover their flesh. In stature they are similar to Humans, albeit taller and more heavily muscled. Unsurprisingly, as they are kin to dragons, some hybrids have wings and some breathe fire, though not all do. As they are also kin to Humans, some hybrids also made deadly use of armor and weaponry.

Swarms of these hybrids accompanied their larger cousins in the invasion, and their presence gave the forces of dragons a degree of tactical flexibility they had lacked in times past.

The people of Terrinoth had faced dragons before, for during the time of the First Darkness, the drakes of Hellspanth had proved deadly. Yet, while those drakes had been terrible foes, they had been lacking in numbers. Before the start of the Third Darkness, an organized defense centered on heavy missile fire, dispersed formations, and support from massed pikemen was thought to effectively counter a dragon attack, and such formations were recommended in a number of military treatises.

### The End of the Usurper's Line

While the armies of the Uthuk Y’llan had rampaged across Talindon with few goals beyond those of plunder and destruction, and while Waiqar’s Deathborn Legion had taken years to locate a number of the Stars he craved, the Dragonlord Margath knew from the outset of his campaign what he wanted and where to get it. He too hungered for the Stars of Timmorran, and while they could be found throughout the world, a great cache of them was held in the treasury of King Trevnor Soulstone, who kept his court in the city of Tamalir.

So it was to Tamalir that the dragon host flew, pausing only at isolated villages to reprovision (for which dragons is a euphemism for eating everything and anyone they could lay their claws on). At the walls of the city, the dragons faced little opposition. The dragon hybrids descended on towers and artillery positions that would have troubled the larger drakes, and the drakes in turn incinerated infantry forces sent to slay the hybrids. It is said that Margath himself broke into the royal palace and burned the king to charred meat, along with his family and retainers. Terrinoth was left without a ruler once more, and the dragons gathered up the riches from the palace treasury, including a sizable cache of the Stars of Timmorran.

### The Runes Are Written

As the wars dragged on, the dragons’ greed for more Stars only increased, and in their desperation, they were even willing to turn the Stars they had in their possession into weapons of war with which they could win even greater hoards of plunder. According to some accounts, it was the Dragonlord Zir who first broke down some of the Stars into smaller fragments and inscribed runes upon them. This process involved the use of dragonfire to soften the Star, and the incredible sharpness of her own claws to inscribe the mark.

This transformed a Star of Timmorran, in itself an unstable magical artifact that could be used by a trained magician to perform all manner of magical spells, into a runebound shard, a smaller, stable artifact that could be used by a bearer with no magical knowledge to cast a particular spell.

Elven myths attest to the creation of the physical realm through the words of the Yrthwrights. Runemasters at Greyhaven suspect that the carved runes are the dragons’ representations of the Yrthwrights’ words. Some of these runes are known as dragon runes, which are thought to have the name of the dragonlord who inscribed the rune incorporated into them.

The immediate effect of this work was to transform Margath’s host from a formidable army into one that was nigh unbeatable. Now, the dragon hybrids that formed the vanguard of an assault could carry with them runebound shards that made their armor impervious to missile fire, and mighty drakes could teleport short distances and leach energy from their foes in order to heal their own injuries.

### The Dragons Turn to Wanton Slaughter

Margath was so confident in the power the runebound shards provided his forces that he no longer bothered to manage his horde as a coherent entity. Instead, his forces fractured, and each dragonlord led a smaller pack of its own. These raiding armies swooped upon the realms of the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, burning and ravaging as they went with no discernible battle strategy. The aim of the dragons at this time becomes less clear, for while they continued to search for Stars with which to create more runebound shards, they also seemed to acquire a taste for slaughter for its own sake. Even the Orcs of the Broken Plains suffered from the depredations of the dragons, despite the fact that not a single Star of Timmorran had ever been in their possession.

A force of dragons led by Gehennor took to persecuting the Dunwarr Dwarves in particular. His dragon hybrids made assaults into the cavernous halls of the Dunwarr Deeps, while the larger dragons ambushed any forces sent to reinforce the beleaguered defenders. As bad as these raids were, they were as nothing to his final, devastating attack later in the war.

Dwarves also suffered terribly at the hold of Yrthwright’s Forge. This city was a desirable prize for the dragons, as volcanic fires burned within the depths of the mountain. Not only did the heat from this blaze power industry and mining works throughout the city, but the volcanic vents provided a comforting habitat for the dragons, as if the area were a little portion of Molten Heath nestled within the heart of the continent. The Dragonlord Avox led the assault on the city. He enslaved the Dwarves and forced them to dig deep into the mountains, reserving for himself the riches they found. The dragons roved the countryside around the hold, abducting Humans from nearby villages to join the slaves in the mines.

Farther afield, dragon forces harried the skies of Lorimor, though the Imperial army was quick to construct a great array of ballistae around their cities, with which they repelled the worst of the dragon attacks. Across the sea, even the cities of Al-Kalim came under attack by dragon forces and in the great Aymhelin, the proud elves were crushed by defeat and enslaved by Dragonlord Baalesh. However, the dragons could never penetrate the Latari Palace, where the last remnants of Elven resistance held out under siege.

### Destruction in the Deeps

As Terrinoth burned, the Dragonlord Gehennor attacked the Dunwarr Mountains again and again, sending his armies of dragon hybrids deep into the very halls of the Dunwarr Deeps. Filled with fury at their ancient foe’s return, the Deeplords led a counterassault against the draconic horde. On the slopes of Felfrost Spike, the Deeplord brothers Bran and Ordan faced Gehennor, only to perish against the dragon’s claws. Their cousins tried to reclaim their bodies, only to themselves burn.

So died the last of a line of Dwarven rulers stretching back to the dawn of their history. This led to the ascension of the guilds in the aftermath of the Third Darkness, and that is why the Dunwarr Dwarves elect their rulers from among their guild elders.

### Seeking the Favor of the Dragonlords

In the years following Margath’s invasion, many enemies of Terrinoth allied themselves to his cause. The first of these, perhaps predictably enough, was Waiqar the Betrayer, who dispatched columns of undead warriors to aid the dragons. What he hoped to gain by this remains a mystery, but some speculate that he was less interested in aiding the dragons so much as desperate to find Stars of Timmorran for himself before they were all broken down and refined by Zir’s process. Perhaps the Undying thought the dragons might repay him with an unbroken Star of Timmorran, or a cache of runebound shards. Perhaps he merely sought to wreak revenge on the lands of the barons who had humiliated him in times past. Some even believe Waiqar himself was the cause of the dragon war, having planted word of the Stars and their use across the Heath to attract Margath’s attention.

The mysterious Bloodguard Knights also reappeared at this time, lending their lances to the dragons’ cause. Quite who these terrible warriors are and why they seem to appear throughout history is unclear. In the earliest days of Penacor rule, King Arcus had vanquished a band of reavers operating under such a name, and the murder of King Daqan has also been attributed to them, among other atrocities.

Whether the Bloodguard Knights who harried Terrinoth during the Third Darkness held anything more than name in common with this ancient threat is not known. It is safe to say that they were committed to wickedness, equipped in the manner of elite heavy cavalry, and happy to fight for the reward of magic runes. Even some corrupt Terrinoth lords were tempted to throw their lot in with the dragonlords for a similar reward.

The dragons sorely needed such allies, for despite the dragons’ great strength, they risked losing a battle of attrition due to their low numbers. Once again, Dwarves, Elves, and Humans began to coordinate a defense against the darkness.

### An Alliance at Sudanya

During a cold winter’s day in 1028, a meeting was held in Sudanya, nestled near the borders of the Ru. Winter was considered an advantageous time to organize efforts against the dragons. The cold weather turned the reptilian beings sluggish and drowsy, and they spent the sunless months consolidating their victories and conserving their strength.

At Sudanya, representatives from Terrinoth met with those from Dunwarr, the Aymhelin, and the Lorimor Empire to discuss strategy, and for the first time in Terrinoth’s history, Orc chieftains from the Broken Plains also joined the conclave. The Orcs were in an unusual position: they desperately needed help facing the threat posed by the dragons, but they were widely distrusted due to the part they had played in aiding Llovar during the First Darkness, and for the many raids they had carried out on neighboring lands in the centuries since. Before being invited to the conclave, the chiefs from a number of important Orcish tribes swore powerful oaths that they would never raise arms against the Fair Realms again.

### The Turning of the Tide

The allies coordinated their counterattacks, taking advantage of the dragons’ lack of numbers and inability to respond to threats on numerous fronts. Thanks to these efforts, the dragons faced increasing pressure, and their campaigns suffered unexpected setbacks. Fortunately for the other races, some of the runebound shards had also been captured in battle or stolen from dragon lairs. Now the allies had the means to fight back on the magical front as well.

The Dragonlord Gehennor, in what turned out to be an overly confident action, gathered a small force of dragon hybrids and launched a subterranean campaign against the Dwarves of the Jornall Clan. However, he found his hybrid warriors repulsed at tremendous cost. The arrival of Orc reinforcements caught him completely by surprise as well, and he was forced to retreat with what was left of his hybrids.

While this was heralded as a major victory for the Dwarves and their new Orc allies, they would soon face terrible devastation at the mountains of Dunwarr. Gehennor had learned from his errors under the Jornall range, and with a larger contingent of hybrids he would later be victorious.

The Terrinoth noble Lady Ysbet led an army to Yrthwright’s Forge and orchestrated a brilliant series of tunnel fights that ended in her slaying the Dragonlord Avox. The slaves there hailed her as a savior and asked her to become governor of Forge (after the depredations of the dragons, the inhabitants brooked no association with the Yrthwrights), now envisioned as a new Free City.

In northeastern Terrinoth, the dragons suffered the most decisive defeat of their campaign. They had fallen upon the city of Kell, rumored to contain a number of Stars of Timmorran. However, the rumors were part of a ruse. No Stars were to be found in Kell, but the city was ringed with defensive redoubts containing ballistae of Lorimorian design. Leading the defense of Kell was none other than the bold adventurer Lord Roland, who had equipped himself with the tools needed to slay a dragonlord. He bore an ice storm runebound shard, with which he could summon freezing rain, and a rare soulstone runebound shard from the royal vaults in Archaut, which leached the life from his enemies and filled him with stolen vigor in turn. He was mounted upon a rare Yeron, one of the winged horses of the Elves.

As the dragons reeled from a hail of bolts and arrows, they retreated to the cold skies above the Mountains of Despair, out of reach of the deadly artillery fire. Lord Roland had anticipated this, and from his mountainside perch, he took to the air and used his runebound shard to call forth freezing rain on the position of Margath the Unkind.

The dragonlord was left dazed and weakened from the cold, and Lord Roland was able to drive his blade, the legendary elf-sword Coravim, also called Brave Heart, through the neck of the great drake. The valiant lord did not live to celebrate his victory, however, for in the dragonlord’s death throes, Margath broke the wings of Roland’s Yeron. Horse and rider tumbled from the sky to their deaths. The people of Kell hailed a great victory, but with heavy hearts. In the years to come, the mountainsides would be combed for the remains of Lord Roland and Margath, but no bodies have ever been recovered from the snow-shrouded peaks.

Hungry to win a victory in turn, King Aanir of the Latari organized a massive sally from the silver palace of Caelcira. Under cover of darkness, he led a spearhead of Leonx Riders into the heart of the encamped foe. Unfortunately for the Elf king, his charge did not prove the decisive action he had hoped, and before his cavalry could regroup, he was pinned to the ground by the Dragonlord Baalesh and devoured, the occupation of Aymhelin unbroken.

Baalesh consolidated her own forces in the aftermath of this battle, and she judged that the Elven defenders were now so weakened that she could finally storm the silver palace and end the Elven resistance. Before she could act, however, Baalesh was called away by a message from Zir the Black, who demanded that she reinforce the Dragonkin under attack in Terrinoth rather than attempt to storm Caelcira.

### Shaarina's Judgement

By 1029, the armies of the dragonlords were greatly diminished. Those cities of Terrinoth that had not been burned to the ground were now ringed with so many archers and artillery emplacements that no dragons dared approach them. The Bloodguard Knights had vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared, and Waiqar the Betrayer sent no further regiments of shambling Reanimates from his Cursed Barony. Zir the Black and her battered force of drakes and hybrids roamed the wilds of Terrinoth, hiding alongside their stolen hauls of treasure.

Then came a sight that chilled the hearts of the allies: a great host of mighty dragons swooping over the land. Drakes dwarfing even the dragonlords in size, escorted by teeming flocks of other Dragonkin, darkened the skies of Terrinoth. Many thought the end had arrived, and soon a final, fiery death would come. The dragon host flew from the Molten Heath in the north, heading for Zir’s last known lair.

The allies held an emergency conclave, drafting plans for how to deal with the renewed threat. Certain craven lords even suggested negotiating surrender, though no red-blooded being would countenance such a thing. Life lived under the cruel yoke of a dragonlord, whose only concern about their slaves is how much wealth they can produce or how they might taste as a meal, is a bleak life indeed.

Within days, reports came in suggesting that those same dragons that had appeared to be fresh reinforcements for Zir’s army were now flying back to the Heath, carrying in their claws piles of the treasure that had been looted from the cities of the Fair Realms. To all accounts, the newcomers had not troubled the people of Terrinoth, and they had devoured not even so much as a sheep during their sojourn.

In time, the site of a terrible act of violence was discovered in the wilds. Orc scouts found the bodies of Zir the Black and hundreds of lesser Dragonkin, torn apart and burned. Greyhaven suspects that the actions of Margath and the other dragonlords had not met with the consent of the Great Dragon Rex Shaarina. After much contemplation, she and her court had acted to end the Third Darkness by executing those who had taken part in the invasion and claiming the plunder they had amassed for her own hoard.

By all accounts, Shaarina the Rex still lives on the Molten Heath, and she must own a priceless haul of bound and unbound shards, unbroken Stars, and other magical riches from the Time of the Elder Kings. Periodically, particularly brave adventurers present themselves as envoys to the Dragonkin, seeking both an explanation of the events of the Third Darkness and opportunities to engage in trade. They typically end up inside the belly of a drake, but some come back telling tales of the Dragonlord Rex’s displeasure at the wanton excesses of the Elder Kings and the abuse of power not meant for mortals.

Tales are also told of how lesser dragons inhabit lonely mountain caves or moorland lakes, survivors of the Third Darkness who escaped the wrath of Shaarina. Some even claim to have conversed with such dragons, and they say the dragons confirm the tales of those of beings who have won an audience with Dragonlord Rex. On very rare occasions, a dragon hybrid attempts to pass itself off as a civilized creature, earning a place among mercenary cohorts or adventuring bands.

The ultimate fate of the Dragonlords Baalesh, Levirax, and Gehennor is not recorded in any scrolls to be found. A most worrisome note on which to end this account.