The Old Kingdoms

Approximate span: c. 5,000–800 years before AF 1.

Humans, dwarves, and elves establish increasingly durable states and begin competing directly with surviving elder powers.

The period is marked by territorial expansion, repeated wars over old settlements and strategic routes, and the emergence of political centers strong enough to reshape entire regions.

Human Expansion Around Mereth

Human states grow rapidly around Mereth and along the western approaches.

New settlements spread along rivers, roads, farmland, and navigable shores. Older towns expand into fortified political centers, while competing rulers attempt to control ports, crossings, fertile land, and access to inland trade.

Human expansion increasingly collides with old troll-held and mixed territories around the eastern and northern approaches to Mereth.

At first, many border regions remain mixed.

Human and troll settlements trade, raid, exchange captives, negotiate access, and sometimes share rulers or military obligations.

As human populations continue to grow, those arrangements become harder to maintain.

Dwarven Hold-States

The strongest dwarven mountain settlements grow into permanent hold-states.

Expansion is slow but difficult to reverse. New tunnels, fortified passes, storehouses, roads, and defended valleys allow neighboring communities to support one another across increasingly large territories.

The mountains are already inhabited.

Orc and ogre settlements control some valleys, passes, hunting grounds, and mineral-rich regions. Goblin communities occupy many of the same systems. Several early dwarven holds are destroyed before stronger networks emerge.

Other regions are taken through long wars, negotiated settlements, tributary arrangements, or alliances with local populations.

As dwarven control expands, old mountain routes become increasingly secure and durable political boundaries begin forming between major holds.

Elven Realms

Elven populations consolidate across the eastern forests, uplands, and headwaters.

Some communities join through alliances and shared defense. Others are absorbed through conquest.

Conflict with troll, goblin, tsekesh, gnoll, and other established populations becomes increasingly common as elven settlement expands.

Control of woodland, hunting territory, river headwaters, and routes through the eastern uplands produces generations of local wars.

Druidic traditions become increasingly influential in the defense and management of settled forest regions, while arcane study grows within larger elven centers.

Several eastern realms emerge from these networks, though no single power controls the entire region.

The War of Ash and Bone

The War of Ash and Bone begins after several human states push into old troll territories around the Mereth approaches.

Early human campaigns fail repeatedly.

Troll commanders avoid direct battles when possible, strike supply routes, ambush isolated forces, and use local knowledge to break larger armies apart.

Necromancy becomes increasingly important as the fighting continues.

Battlefield dead are raised against former allies. Preserved bodies are used in defensive strongholds. Human armies begin destroying bodies whenever they cannot safely recover them.

The war changes when human rulers begin targeting troll mortuary sites directly.

Ancestor houses are burned. Mummified rulers and shamans are destroyed. Tomb chambers are broken open, and preserved bodies are burned or scattered to deny necromancers access to them.

One major sack becomes infamous after an entire mortuary district containing generations of preserved dead is destroyed.

Troll retaliation is severe.

Settlements associated with the burnings are attacked without quarter. Prisoners are killed and raised. Dead human soldiers are sent against fortified positions or returned toward their former camps.

The conflict becomes increasingly difficult to contain.

Dwarven Intervention

Several dwarven holds eventually enter the war alongside human forces.

Their motives differ.

Some seek recognition of disputed mountain claims. Others want control of strategic passes or protection of trade routes repeatedly threatened by the fighting.

Dwarven forces secure roads, fortify crossings, and reduce the effectiveness of troll attacks on supply lines.

Their siege engineering also becomes important in the reduction of fortified troll positions that human armies had previously failed to take.

Not every hold participates, and several remain neutral.

Elven Intervention

Several elven realms also enter the war alongside human forces as troll necromancy becomes increasingly destructive.

Elven warriors and magical practitioners take part in campaigns against troll rulers using raised dead, and their support helps human armies withstand forms of warfare they had struggled to answer alone.

The alliance has limits.

Elven rulers do not accept the destruction of troll communities simply because they are troll, and they resist attempts by human rulers to treat every captured settlement as legitimate territory.

Some elven lands shelter troll civilians, refugees, and groups opposed to the necromancers driving the war.

Human and elven forces therefore fight together against major troll powers while still clashing over conquered land and the treatment of surviving populations.

Collapse of Western Troll Power

The war lasts long enough to break much of the remaining troll power around Mereth.

Human populations replace losses more quickly. Dwarven fortifications make recovered territory harder to retake. Elven intervention adds further pressure against major necromantic strongholds. Troll states become divided over strategy, surrender, and the increasing use of necromancy.

Several major troll populations withdraw east through existing settlement and trade networks.

Others remain behind under new rulers, survive as independent enclaves, or are destroyed during the fighting.

The largest eastern troll centers grow rapidly as refugees, warriors, shamans, and displaced households arrive from the west.

A New Political Balance

The old political geography is transformed.

Human states hold much of the Mereth basin and western approaches.

Dwarven hold-states control increasing portions of the northern mountain systems.

Elven realms dominate larger parts of the eastern forests and uplands.

Troll power becomes increasingly concentrated farther east.

Orc states remain powerful across large southern and interior territories, while ogre populations are increasingly scattered or tied to stronger neighboring powers.

The growing stability of these states allows roads, trade, diplomacy, and long-distance record-keeping to expand beyond the older regional networks.