Feadhainn Era

> *This article is about the historical time period, also known as the Ancient Era. For the architectural style, see Duil Architecture. For the ancient civilization, see Feadhainn.*
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> *See More: Complete Timeline of the Mortal Realm*
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The Feadhainn Era (known internationally as the "Ancient Era") is the period between the birth of the first souls (< year 0) to the fall of Feadhainn and the beginning of the Waldren Occupation in Tirónar (~ year 1000).

This mostly undocumented period began when the Fae Realm and the Mortal Realm collided, resulting in the first souls. This, in turn, led to the rise of civilizations such as Feadhainn, the beginning of whose Golden Age is marked as year 0 on the Duil calendar. Around the year 500, a war between the dragons caused continent-wide destruction, decimating their own species and dozens of human civilizations, many of which never fully recovered. Historians are uncertain when exactly the Dragon War ended and the Dark Age of Feadhainn began, but current estimates are close to the year 600. The era ended around the year 1000, when the Waldren Trade Enterprise came across the sea from the east, colonizing, repopulating, and exploiting the still-recovering continent.

## Duilintinn

> *See More: Feadhainn*
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The history of the land that would eventually become Duilintinn during the Feadhainn Era is almost entirely dominated by its namesake. The people of Feadhainn were incredibly isolated from the rest of the continent, with little to no interaction with their neighbors due to geological boundaries.

An isolated tribal culture also lived in the heights of the southern mountains during this time. Due to Feadhainn's focus on developing the lowland Draoidh Valley and Monaidh Plains, the two groups barely interacted until the Waldren Occupation.

### Timeline:

< 0: Feadhainn exists, but all remaining records of this time are debatably legend or myth

~ 0: The first year of the Feadhainn-Duil Calendar, when they diverted the Agrona River

~500: Dragon War starts, ending Feadhainn Golden Age

~600: Dragons wipe themselves out in their war, leaving the decimated remains of Feadhainn to pick up the pieces

~1000: Waldren shows up and starts capitalizing on Tirónar

## Haneul

In Haneul, the time period before the Dragon War was mostly driven by a careful balancing act. Dragon culture originated in the rocky plateau of Haneul. At the same time, humans began to live in the region. The good news is that the dragons never considered their ground-based neighbors to be threats to their rapidly developing territorial culture, and often protected the humans living within their territory. The bad news is that land disputes between dragons were usually sudden and destructive, albeit short-lived. The humans living in close proximity to these disputes soon developed contingency plans to protect themselves from their effects. Not only was this likely the origin of the "ready-for-anything" culture we see in modern Haneul, but these defenses allowed the people of this region to survive the Dragon War and rebuild in time to fend off the Waldren Occupation centuries later.

After the Dragon War, the peoples of Haneul immediately began to investigate what remained of the devastation with paranoid determination. In addition to discovering that the dragons were seemingly extinct, they also found new people groups who were equally paranoid after decades of destruction. These encounters usually went the same way; after a brief stalemate where both parties would wait for the other to make a move, there would be an attempt to communicate with the other group. After quickly realizing that both parties spoke the language of the dragons, a truce would be called and the groups would immediately bond over the strange, dragon-less situation they found themselves in. There would still be plenty of tense moments where someone presumes a member of the other group has bad intentions, resulting in another standoff, but the destruction of the Dragon War had left everyone in a state of crisis. Most groups were not willing to risk a fight with limited resources and fighters that could wipe them out after surviving a century of fire from the skies, so these encounters usually ended peacefully, and often with agreements to help each other rebuild.

The results of this alliance between entirely disparate peoples, united only by a shared language and the question of "what the heck is going on?" are visible to this day. With conflicting government factions that simultaneously work together while clearly also out for their own ends and a king who either has no control over his subjects or the ability to herd them like sheep, it's only the ancestral awareness that danger could strike from the skies at any moment that prevents the insanity that is Haneul from falling into civil war.

## Grancinco (and Tandeli)

During the Ancient Era, the land we now call Tandeli was a part of the country of Grancinco. Located on the far southern edge of Tirónar, this region faced less devastation during the Dragon War than Duilintinn, Lantraeth, and Halennor, but benefitted from none of the defenses that protected Haneul. As a result, Grancinco and much of its infrastructure survived the initial devastation, and the nation swiftly rebuilt what had been lost. However, these efforts left them unprepared militarily when the Waldren Occupation began. Like Haneul, Grancinco attempted to fight back against Waldren, but with less success.

## Lantraeth and Halennor

The ancient cultures of Lantraeth and Halennor were completely decimated by the Dragon War, to the point that, to this day, we know next to nothing about them. Scholarly theories propose that, while the people of these cold, northern regions may have built defenses similar to those in Haneul, these fortresses would have been rendered useless when the war caused unprecedented fires throughout both heavily forested regions. As a result, these peoples would have been trapped between a frozen coast and burning pines that hadn't been cleared by a forest fire for centuries. Regardless of how exactly the end came, the northern coasts of Halennor and Lantraeth were only sparsely populated by explorers, loggers, and travelers from the south when the Waldren Occupation began.

## Island League

During the Ancient Era, the myriad of people groups living on the islands in the Eastern Sea perfected ship making and sailing techniques for quick, maneuverable sea travel faster than any civilization in the Mortal Realm. While the Island League as we know it today wouldn't come together until the Waldren Occupation, these separate cultures were constantly engaging in cultural diffusion (either through alliances or rivalries) and all shared a general love for sailing. While the first wave of destruction during the Dragon War nearly obliterated the ships and infrastructure of the islands closer to the mainland, the islands further off the coast quickly united in the face of a greater danger to evacuate and retreat to islands further off the coast. Ancient records confirm that some ships even sailed directly into the flames in order to rescue the stranded survivors of the initial attacks. Others even sailed directly to the coast of Haneul to offer aid, and while every offer was refused, the people of Haneul never forgot the daring, bravery, and selflessness of these acts.

As a result, the ancient peoples of the Island League survived the Dragon War with a greater appreciation for both the sea and each other. While many decided to rebuild on the islands far from the coast of Tirónar, many ships returned to the coastal islands, where they found Haneul in the middle of its great cultural expansion and were welcomed back with open arms. The Haneulians still bore an inexplicable aversion to the sea, while the sailors had no desire to be absorbed into a chaotic mainland culture, so the two "cultures" (i.e. two groups of a bazillion different cultures) instead became close allies. The newfound unity between the distinct cultures of the islands would set the stage for the creation of a confederation known as the "Island League," while the friendship with Haneul would ultimately prevent both groups from falling to the imperialism of the Waldren Occupation.

## Leyfel

According to the accounts left behind by the settlers from Waldren, the island of Leyfel was completely uninhabited when their ships arrived in Tirónar. It's hard to say how true this is. Waldren could have easily lied about this, hiding their hostile takeover of the island's previous peoples from history. On the other hand, Waldren was not ashamed of their campaigns for land in other parts of Tirónar, so perhaps they were telling the truth. Regardless, if such a culture once existed, Waldren's takeover would have been swift and genocidal. Unlike Lantraeth and Halennor, which still bear faint, decrepit evidence of past civilizations, the island of Leyfel was either completely untouched by human hands before the Waldren Occupation, or all signs of the past inhabitants were systematically wiped from the island soon after Waldren's arrival.