Forgotten Realms: the Green Years
What Has Come and Gone Before
Hello, friends and readers. Here is a preview of an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons book about the ancient days of the Forgotten Realms setting, focusing on the first elves to inhabit that world, and a history that once was, but is no longer. I hope you enjoy it!
The History That Is
In the beginning, there was chaos. Out of this emerged the primordial beings of existence – the forerunners of the three ruling kinds of the lower planes. Then came spirits of a different sort, the ones known as gods, beings of order and structure. They made war on the forces of chaos, and in the end, creation was divided between them. One group of gods, who are now called the archfey, claimed the realm of Faerie as their own, and hold it to this day.
Much later, there was a war between two factions of the Seldarine, a family of gods devoted to the ideals of freedom and benevolence. Some of them followed the weaver-goddess Araushnee into wickedness, and they were cast out.
The people known as elves were born out of the blood of their father-god, Corellon, in his battle with the orc deity Gruumsh. The first elves dwelled in Faerie, where they divided into different kindreds (green, gold, silver, dark and more) made mighty kingdoms of their own.
For unknowable reasons of their own, the rulers of Faerie settled the world of Abeir-Toril with some of the green elves who worshiped them.
A great cataclysm destroyed one of the realms of the gold elves. The handful survivors fled to Abeir-Toril and eventually established new realms alongside the native elves.
A mighty ritual of High Magic, intended to create a new elvish homeland, went disastrously wrong, and the devastating consequences reshaped the face of Abeir-Toril... and also reshaped the past, present and future of that world in ways only the gods could truly comprehend.
The History That Was
Cala Leafwhisper stared across the ice-clad clearing at the woman sharing it with her -- if she was a woman. She looked the part, by and large, but Cala had never seen a woman like her. Her hair was golden like the summer sun, her skin was fair, and – this was the truly extraordinary part – she had beautiful feathered wings, white as snow with a radiant golden tint. At the moment, they were folded up like a cloak, almost fading into the saffron robes the woman wore.
“Speak freely,” the winged woman said with a gentle smile lighting up her face.
“Who are you?” Cala demanded.
“The Witness.”
Cala pursed her lips. The golden woman’s obvious power didn’t prevent the green elf from feeling some annoyance. “What’s your name?”
“Ara Thé,” she answered. Neither name meant anything to Cala, not in her mind, but somehow they resonated in her soul. Who was she – what was she?
Cala remembered the lessons of her grandmother. There were more mystical realms than Faerie, strange ones inhabited by stiff-necked spirits, many rigidly bound by rules and codes that were prisons instead of paths. Was this Witness, this Ara Thé, one of those prisoners? Celestials! That was the proper name, Cala suddenly remembered. Celestials... “Why are you here and what do you want?” Cala asked after a moment of silence that was stretching on to an uncomfortable length.
“I am the Witness. I would hear your people’s story before it changes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who are you and where do you come from?” Ara asked as if Cala hadn’t even spoken.
The green elf glowered, but only for a moment. With the winter storm raging still, she wasn’t going anywhere. And, she realized, Ara herself was radiating a gentle warmth unmatched by Cala’s struggling fire. She was mesmerized and didn’t realize it – might not even have cared if she did. There was something ancient and pure in the celestial’s eyes.
“I am Cala Mereð of the Thornskins,” Cala said, staring at the celestial over the short-lived embers swirling up from her fire. “And this is the truth I was taught...”
She swam away from the world as she told the story, just as it had been told to her when she was a girl at her grandmother’s side...
The world was born out of chaos. There was no form, no solidity, no purpose. Just the maelstrom and the dark thoughts it gave life to, if you can call it life.
Word-images came to her mind from the memories of her ancestors and she could hear Ara’s voice forming a chorus with her own thoughts.
First came the gaunt ones
(baernaloths)
and they were alone for a long time. Then they spawned more of their kind, but lesser, for evil cannot bear to make anything greater than itself and the shapeless ones that shaped themselves
(obyriths)
hated their makers and sought to tear them down and become the makers themselves. There was one among them who was strongest and he
(Oxob-ob)
made war on the makers. And the chaos was torn in two. Now there was order
(the glorious freedom of choosing what is right)
and it gave life to its own thoughts and they were
(my fathers)
the gods and they made war against the second-born sons of chaos
(primordials)
and the blood they shed was new life and it
(I)
fought at their side and after ten thousand ages
(all in a day)
the sons of order slew the second-born
(not all)
or imprisoned them
(not all)
and victory was theirs and they set a guard around chaos and remade the world of order
(the empyrean)
in the image of their thoughts and it was
(good)
done. But in the chaos, there was still war. Some of the shapeless ones
(fey)
looked into the golden worlds
(my home)
and knew light for the first time and it burned away their twisted husks and they were reborn
(in my fathers’ image)
in shapes of light and the light made war on the darkness. Ten thousand
(archfey)
begat ten thousand
(sidhe)
apiece and ten thousand each ten thousand more
(eladrin)
and their songs of battle and magic and hope and joy and victory were born something new, and they were
(you)
the fathers of the elves. And when the war was finally over
(it never ended but it is quieter now)
those we call the archfey took the realm they had carved out of the elder chaos and remade it to their liking, and it was given to us to
(tame)
settle it, and five places
(cities)
were carved out
(built)
for us. They were Tintageer, Cavasaan, Tir-an-Duer, Nesteldath and Faercavon. And those were the golden years, when we were free from war and wrath, and our toil was all for our glory and the gratitude of our lords, and the second-born were not yet an affliction upon our bliss.
High we climbed and deep we swam, far we roamed and fiercely we hunted. Wide lands were given to us for our pleasure. Days, seasons, years – they passed through our fingers like water over a precipice. And then it came to the mind of the young Fey lords, those born of wombs instead words, to give us kin that were akin in form but not blood. And so came the Second Born, gold and silver and mithral, or so they were called. And our days of bliss ended. Ever we counseled them, but ever they shunned our hard-won wisdom.
High they built and deep they delved, far they marched and fiercely they fought. Wide lands they claimed as their own and vast cities they rose to imprison all their noisy thoughts and give them shape. This they called magic.
At last, at our urging, the High Court took pity on us and atoned for the great
(glorious)
misdeed
(wonderwork)
of the womb-born
(the Seldarines)
and bade us to find a new realm beyond the green shores and white seas. But only two of our chieftains were bold enough to pass through the portals. Their names were Moðir and Banar, and they are the fathers of all the Elder People of Heisudor. Farewell to bliss, but farewell to bliss’ bane, too! So we went forth from Faerie to Abeir-Toril, and it was a world to suit us. There was high beauty to witness, but also great peril to master. The dragons and the fomorians were still mighty in those days
(are still mighty in these days)
and it took long years to claim Heisudor from them.
She spoke so for hours
(days)
recounting all the mighty and marvelous deeds of the green elves, and many of the night elves, too. Agaryn Dulaveer’s six day duel against six dragons. Ðorsten Renavik’s exploration of the Well of Lost Souls and the liberation of the wailing ghosts of Thar-un-Tharsk. The War of Arrows and Owls. Tithian Yuros and his seven journeys north of north, to the very crown of the world, and the seven cities of glass he found there. And last and longest of all, the Fury of the Dragons, and all the horrors that came with it.
But at last it was done, and Moðir and Banar could lay down their burdens and return to Faerie to be made anew. The kindred of Moðir are my people, the green elves, and the kindred of Banar are our kinfolk, the night elves, and we dwell in harmony together.
(and so too with the mountain elves and the helpful folk, and the orcs and firbolg who share wood, mountain and water with ye)
It is the duty of my people to protect the forests and the fey folk we are given to serve as guardians from sunrise to sunset, while Banar’s folk are wardens of the dark hours, protecting against darker things still. Thus it has been since the beginning of the Green Years, and thus it is today. And it is good.
When Cala emerged from her tale-trance, the Witness was gone, although the snow where she stood had melted away and the grass there was the color of spring.
The History That Yet Might Be
“When the followers of the fallen court left before their tutelage was done, the Children of the Seldarines were saddened, but did not abandon their great labors. They took hold of the abandoned cities of the Five Seasons, and made them glorious again. But more glorious still were the Cities of the Seldarines they built – Mithrendain and Shinaelestra and Cendriane and Senaliesse and Astrazalian.
And when that work was at last complete, it came into their minds that they should go and find the waywards and become teachers to them, as the Seldarines were to their own folk. And so it came to pass, and the Green Years came to an end, and the Red Years came to be.”
The Red Lament, as recounted by the Witness of the Bygone