The first two races to develop civilizations were the Dwarves and the Elves. The races of men, halfings,  orcs and goblins were present, but still lived as half-animals in small tribes and clans.

The Dwarves had always been cave dwellers, and had learned to tunnel deeper into the caves to avoid other races and monsters on the surface.  They  developed methods of cultivating food underground, planting great caverns of fungus irrigated from underground streams. Goats and sheep were brought underground to serve as livestock, grazing off of fungus and mold fields.

Dwarven clans soon began to link caverns together to share resources and soon a large underground trading network had spread under the mountains. Dwarves fought very few civil wars on the road to civilization, as resources were never scarce for their way of life. Dwarven colonies began to spread out from the mountains, and soon several nations of dwarves had developed.

Meanwhile, the elves had a very different road to build their empire. Elves love the sea, and spread along the shores of the continent. They learned to farm and raise livestock, but largely hated the tasks and preferred to gain their sustenance through fishing. However, as fishing towns grew into cities, the elves were unable to gather enough food from the raging seas to support the denser populations. Wars began between neighboring city-states over control of the best fishing waters, and slaves were captured to serve in the farms surround the victors cities.

The elves had never penetrated far into the interior of the continent. A few explorers had penetrated inland in quest of minerals and trees to support the elven city states, but few elves enjoyed a landbound existence, and the elven presence was largely limited to the 60 miles along the coasts of the continent. The other races still lived as tribes, and were slaughtered if they entered elven lands.

Dwarves and elves both believed themselves to be the rulers of the world, but their interests were so different that conflict was rare. Occasionally an elven lord would sack a dwarven hold in search of precious metals and gems, and occasionally a dwarven horde would sack an elven city in quest of wood and food. Animosity between those races slowly grew over the centuries, but the efforts to attack one another always cost more than was gained; elves could not fight underground as well as the dwarves, and dwarves could not fight in the open as well as the elves. An understanding of distant mutual loathing ultimately  ended large conflicts between these two races.

An especially hard drought affected the interior of the continent for several years. This caused the lesser races to move in greater numbers into the coastal areas, and more into conflict with the established elves. In most locations the elves were more than capable of defending their cities, but in the southern swamps a goblin horde was assembled by their first Warlord, which overran the coastal city of Coral Glades by shear numbers. The surrounding city states ended their own conflicts to put down this new threat, and a mighty host was assembled which liberated the remains of the city and drove the goblins deep back into the drying marsh lands.

The Elves pursued the goblins deep into the interior of the continent, hoping to kill the warlord that led the goblins. They overran and displaced many of the other humanoid tribes in their path. The logistics of carrying the assault hundreds of miles inland began to strain the abilities of the seafaring elves. They began to capture various humanoids to work in pack trains carrying supplies from the Elven cities to the ranging armies.

Ultimately, the goblins were driven into dwarven lands, where the dwarven lords captured the goblin warlord. Hoping to avoid a massive conflict with the elves, they turned the warlord over to an elven army. Goblins still hate dwarves for this reason, even after a thousand years.

The Elves were satisfied with the development, and returned to their cities on the coast. However, the usefulness of humanoid slaves had been proven during the campaign. Since elves are largely opposed to farming themselves, elven raiding parties began expeditions into the interior for the purposes of capturing slaves to work in the fields. Soon the slaves were entering into all elven homes to carry out the mundane tasks of homekeeping, cleaning and base manufacture. Slaves worked the mines, slaves cleaned the streets, and slaves kept the elves fed.

Elven priests declared elves as the rulers of the world, with a holy mandate to lord over all of the lesser races. The elves enslaved the orcs and humans for most tasks, and their strength and intelligence made them easy to work with. Goblins and trolls were considered too wild and stupid to be useful laborers, and were killed in droves to keep them far from elven cities.

The elves themselves were left to become masterful artisians and entertainers. Beautiful music was played on newly created instruments, paintings and sculptures filled the hallways of elf homes, and the streets themselves were often inlaid with gold and jewels.

 Meanwhile, humans and orcs were gaining a knowledge of civilization from the elves. Entire slave communities appeared on the fringes of elven cities, providing the elven cities with the food they were above growing for themselves. The orcs and humans were taught to read and write, to play music, and to organize to manufacture basic necessities. Occasionally slaves would escape back to their wild brethren, and bring new knowledge to those tribes.

As humans and orcs became more and more civilized by the elves, some elves began to feel that humans and orcs were above common beasts, and that the divine mission of the elves was to teach the lesser races to be as elf-like as they could be. These elves called themselves into the Higher Purpose movement, which was later shortened to simply High Elves. They set it as their goal to prove to the rest of the elven society that humans and orcs could govern themselves, and could safely be set free from elven bondage. Several hidden towns of humans and orcs were created in the countryside by high elves, where they could be taught by elven scholars to rule themselves.

 Orcs and humans were fairly friendly during this time. Orcs had some resentment towards the humans, who were considered brighter by the elven lords and generally had less strenuous tasks than the more burly orcs. This was largely forgotten as trade developed between the freed slave townships. Far removed from the elven cities, the high elves’s experiment seemed to be a success.

 However, some of the humans and orcs began to resent the power held over them by the elves. The no longer felt inferior to the elves, and felt they were ready to be treated as equals by the Elven priests. They also felt that much knowledge was being withheld from them, and began pressuring their benefactors to give them knowledge of magic and warfare. The high elves of course refused, as such knowledge would likely lead to attacks on the rest of elven society.

In the hopes of being rewarded with greater knowledge and autonomy, a group of one of the lesser races exposed the other race’s towns to the priests of elven society. In a righteous rage, the priests called for these towns to be destroyed as abominations against the natural order brought forth by the elven gods. The betrayers’ towns were also quickly discovered in the crusade, and destroyed at the same time. In a month, nearly all such towns were destroyed.

 This event was known as The Betrayal. Orcs claim humans were the betrayers, while humans claim orcs were the betrayers. Who actually betrayed whom first is now unknown, but the accusations caused a hatred to form between the two races that still exists today.

 However, the elven response to the Betrayal began a deep rift in elven society. As the news of the success of the free orcs and men spread, many elves began to question their enslavement. The High Elf cause gained many followers in the months following the Great Betrayal. In response, a counter-movement of elves dedicated to the continuing enslavement of man and orc developed. These elves were mostly from the wealthiest areas of society, who had the most to lose by the loss of the slaves. They considered the high elves to be soft-hearted, idealistic weaklings in the best of cases, and heretics at worst. In sarcastic contempt of the more altruistic High Elves, they called themselves Low or Dark Elves.

 Political and economic movements soon resulted in some cities to declare themselves as High Elf free cities, where men and orcs began to be educated towards self determination. Though some small skirmishes occurred between the factions, neither group was willing to risk an actual war over the issue. Political intrigues and embargo were still the weapons of choice in the battle.

 In what was to become the catalyst for the total dissolution of the elven empire, mages in the High Elf city of Tirith  began planning the escape of all slaves from the Dark Elf city of Caudril. For seven days, a hundred high elf mages weaved a spell to put the entire city to sleep. Other mages prepared two isolated valleys to receive and protect the slaves. At midnight on the seventh day, the entire city of Caudril fell silent. Slowly, dreams formed in the minds of the sleeping slaves, leading them out from the city and towards the safe havens. High Elf familiars flitted through the streets, releasing those slaves which were chained or locked away. A stream of sleepwalking orcs led southeast from the city, while a line of sleepwalking humans led southwest.

 The spell had lasted for two days before Dark Elves from neighboring cities began to notice the lack of communication with Caudril. A gathering of Dark Elf mages finally broke through the spell late on the third day, waking many of the mages within the city. Once these mages discovered the missing slaves, they quickly organized all Dark Elf mages throughout the empire to break the spell over the city. They then scryed over the countryside, searching for the missing slaves. In a total rage, they vowed to teach the High Elves a lesson they would never forget: the total destruction of the escaped in as horrible manner as they could imagine. For hours, Dark Elf mages and priests sacrificed slaves and prisoners throughout the empire to their gods, focusing a huge concentration of magical energy.

 The High Elves knew when the city of Caudril awoke, and spent their remaining efforts covering the tracks of the exodus and erecting magical barriers along the path to slow the pursuit they were sure would come. As the slaves neared their havens, the Dark Mages struck. Amongst the marching orcs, lines of blue fire erupted along the league long column. With a start, the orcs awoke to find their skin melting from their bodies. In their minds, a suggestion was placed: only the blood of their fellow slaves could quench the fire. The maddened, burning orcs fell upon each other, ripping each other to pieces as the fires consumed them. Within minutes, the entire column of half a million orcs was dead at its own hands.

 The High Elves were horrified by the orcish carnage, but recovered quickly. Knowing that the humans had minutes to live they began weaving spells of protection over the human exodus. More and more high elf mages were called in from across the empire, feverishly building a shell over the now awake and confused humans.

 It was almost enough.

 When the Dark Elf spells descended upon the humans, a blinding flare lit up many miles of the countryside. Great tendrils of blue fire crawled along a shell of protection up and down the column, seeking a weak point to penetrate. Whispering voices arose in the heads of the exodites, driving many insane to flee into the flames. For a half minute, the shell slowly shrank towards the slaves, recoiling from the power of the Dark Elf spell.

 Never had so much magical power been concentrated in one place. Finally, reality had to snap. Great vortexes of randomized magical energy engulfed the exodite path and surrounding forests. When it had faded away, all life in the valley had fused into a single organism - the Abomination. A scream heard for hundreds of miles issued from several million mouths. Satisfied by the result, the Dark Elf mages collapsed in exhaustion.

 The High Elf mages were even more horrified than before. In a last effort, the combined might of their magic tried to undo the spell. Perhaps if they had been fresh they might have succeeded. But many had been focusing for over a  week, and the spell was only partly undone. The organism collapsed back into individual plants, insects and … things. While the spell was capable of separating insect and plant life from each other, it could not separate the humans from the animals. Mutated beasts crawled and slithered from the chaos. Most quickly died from natural incompatibilities, while some killed themselves in horror or madness. However, a few survived as fusions of man and animal; these were the first members of the races known as beastmen.

 This was the final blow to Elven society. Never had Elves created such magic, or committed such atrocities.  The remaining neutral elves polarized to either Dark or High Elf camps; riots soon began through all Elven cities. Powerful spells flew across the landscape, destroying many of the great millennium-old cities. Civil war racked the empire for ten years, until barely one in twenty elves were left alive.

  This is up to about 500 years ago. much is left out, including a few human and orc cultures which grew up far away from the elves, and the progression of magical technology.

  The elven civil war will be described in more detail, and the development of human empires in the void left by the elven civil war will also be described.