8 Chapter 1: Campaigns in tal'Dorei
guidance from beyond the Divine Gate, bestowing their
knowledge and power to their most devout worshipers, but
the path of mortals is now their own to make. New cities,
kingdoms, and cultures have retaken the world, built over
the ashes of the old. New songs fill the air, and the hope of
a brighter future drives people day after day, while buried
ruins and forgotten relics remind all people of a darker time
of mistakes that should never be repeated.The History of Tal ’Dorei
Following the creation, and subsequent razing, of Exan-
dria, a post-Divergence world was now left to rise from
the ashes and begin a new era. While every region has
had their own rebirth since the terrible destruction of
the Calamity, the continent that now bears the name of
this setting shall remain the focus. Let it begin with the
founding of Gwessar.gwessar
Not more than 800 years ago, what is now known as the
continent of Tal’Dorei housed the germinating seeds
of restored civilization. It was the hardy, dependable
dwarves who best weathered the war between gods and
mortals, and within the Cliff keep Mountains, the dwar-
ven clans built the subterranean city of Kraghammer.
The proud clans were the first to reclaim the riches of
the earth, and nestled in its safe embrace they founded
expansive mines of rich metals and minerals, ensuring a
prosperous foothold under the banner of the ruling Clan
Jaggenstrike.
Far to the south of Kraghammer lived the elves. In
the wake of the Calamity, the surviving found shelter
in the otherworldly peace of the Feywild, returning a
generation later, united under the guidance of an elven
sorceress named Yenlara. The elves rallied to her both
for her defiant strength and her compassion in the face
of adversity. It was under Yenlara’s wise rule that elven
society once again began to reform. She led her people
westward to the Verdant Expanse, an untamed forest
born from the surging, post-Calamity energies left
untouched by the Betrayers’ evil. Calling themselves
wood elves, Yenlara’s people began to construct a new
home for elven culture in these lands. This reborn home
was given the name Syngorn.
The new elven society came to call this land Gwessar—
in their tongue, the Fields of Joy—and they refer to the
continent of Tal’Dorei by that name to this day.
The dwarves and elves are long-lived people, and when
they struggled to rebuild their civilizations, there were
those among them who still remembered the world that
was. The humans were not so fortunate. Their histories,
written by warmongers in fading ink on waterlogged
parchment and vellum, did not survive the years. Yet
humanity endured. Several centuries after the Jaggen-
strike dwarves began this period of renewal, a clan ofhumans braved the angry Ozmit Sea and sailed to what is
now western Tal’Dorei from distant Issylra.
These people had the sea in their blood, and sailed from
island to island for generations, but something called
them to Tal’Dorei. The ruins of their first settlement still
stands today: the port city of O’Noa. From O’Noa the
seafarers expanded outward, until all the western shores
fell under their banner. In the North, they found fertile
fields unsalted by the nearby sea against an inlet unmarred
by looming rocks and dangerous reefs, and they began
to build. They did not know their city would become the
heart of a great empire. They did not know the glory and
sorrow that would surround their city of Emon.the iron rule of Drassig
The rise of human colonies vexed the elves of Syngorn.
Forests that had stood for centuries fell under the axes of
creatures who lived only a scant few decades. These ten-
sions did not rise to war, but the humans gnawed at peace
like termites.
As the first human civilization on this part of the world
after the Calamity, a handful of self-entitled noble houses
arose in Emon and established law and structure, but
those who designed the game stacked the deck in their
favor. Corruption spread through the upper echelons of
Emon, and power-hungry politicians seized each new and
valuable resource that was discovered in their bountiful
new kingdom. They turned their citizens against each
other, forcing them to fight for scraps while they hoarded
the lion’s share.
Emon was a political war zone, and the greatest warrior
of them all was a loudmouthed braggart and cunning
oligarch named Warren Drassig. The chaos and mistrust
in Emon allowed Drassig and his agents to seize power
and transform the realm into the Kingdom of Drassig,
with Warren himself as its supreme monarch. Drassig was
quick to sever any remaining connections with the elves
of Syngorn and make new alliances with the dwarves of
Kraghammer, marrying Drassig’s autocratic power with
the dwarves’ immense material wealth.
The elves were furious, but the ambassador from Syn-
gorn to Emon, an idealistic grandson of the still-living
Yenlara, hoped to resolve this diplomatically. Upon
arrival, he was apprehended, tortured, and slain. This final
act of treachery sent Syngorn into arms, and the continent
erupted into a long and terrible war between Yenlara’s kin
and Drassig’s bloodline known as the Scattered War.the sCattereD war
The Scattered War lasted for thirty-two years and is
colloquially known as the “Time of Shrouds:. The war
spanned throughout the Cliff keep Mountains and into
parts of the Verdant Expanse, with the human colonies
spread throughout the soon-to-be-warring territories. The
settlements, towns, and cities had no means of long-range
communication, and could not warn each other; Dras-
sig was able to attack each one with little resistance. He
taught his soldiers to infiltrate their enemy, listening from