The Campaign Builder's Guild

Val'Doro: A History
By Ignatius
Medium magic, lots of intrigue

[spoiler=History]This is the story of how the Elves lost and reclaimed their home world, Val'Doro.  It begins over ten million years ago in another sun's glory [spoiler=...]  Far away and unknown to the Elves, was the sprawling Drakonion Empire, forged by the irrepressible humans and their Drak allies .  There, those who were psionically gifted were ruthlessly hunted down by the Illithids, a psionically gifted alien race who could use their abilities to "stitch" through time, that is, go into another universe at point A, one where destination A and B were right next to each other, and pop back into the original universe at point B.

In fact, that is how the all powerful Drak were born, and with them, the knowledge of magic to mankind.  The Drak can best be described as the opposite of black hole, a "white hole", if you will.  For, while a black hole sucks everything in, a white whole expels things out.  This includes a sentience and will which the Drak retains for itself.  The Drakonions, and indeed the Illithids, learned how to control the power that the Drak expelled first through elaborate ritualistic means which easily developed into religions and later through "arcane" means.  Each to this day retain certain drawbacks and advantages.  The more ritualized way actually asked the Drak to lend them power, which they usually did, but for a price, which was paid in the ritual, and this prominent display of service deified them.  Thus, this way of using their magic was called Deitic magic.  The other way seemingly fits into the medieval concept of magic; seemingly pulling a fireball out of thin air, and thus uses the ancient term Mana.  However, Mana is not that simple.  There are two types, known as Sorcery and Wizardry.  Sorcery is by far the more powerful variant of this type of magic, capable of killing the gods, it is said, but it can only be utilized by the few individuals who possess Drakonion bloodlines (When talking about blood, Drakonion refers specifically to those who have the essence of a Drak within them.  The Drakonion empire gets its name from these extremely powerful human sorcerers, who founded the Empire and expanded it, but while the average human citizen was known as a Drakonion by other races and, later, themselves, they would not have had the raw talent that those descendants of Draks and humans would have had.)  Wizardry, on the other hand, is a discipline which utilizes advanced techniques to calm the mind and open one's self to the powers emanated by the Drak.  By doing this, the individual can find and manipulate, or "weave", the energy many different fashions.  This takes energy from the Drak without really giving anything in return, though it is often easier to cast if you actually do give something in return (i. e. material components are still necessary).  Sorcery is like shouting and kicking the force into submissiveness, wizardry is like weaving a subtle net into which you draw it.  What wizardry lacks in raw power, it can make up for in finesse, but be wary of the almighty sorcerer wizard.

Yet for everything Draks could do, they could not bridge together universes, and were indeed a product of those bridges.  Only Psionicists could do this, and the only psionicists who knew how were the Illithids, a cruel parasitic race who depended on sentient races for hosts but were tolerated because they possessed the ultimate  bargaining chip of interstellar commerce.  Thus, while the host body of a psionically gifted human would be a mouth-watering prize for an Illithid, they were a danger to their travel monopoly, and thus, too dangerous to exist in the eyes of the Illithid. They put pressure on the Drakonions and, risking much, finally forced the Drakonions to hunt down and destroy any Psychics they could by blockading the Drakonions, all without revealing why they feared the psychics so much.  Many Psychics died, but a few of the psionically gifted humans escaped and lived on the run.  The Illithids had victory in their parasitic claws when there worst fears came true:  Drakonion forces overseen by Illithids had a force of Psychic forces, which had been amassed in an attempt to provide security for the refugees but ultimately backfired by drawing unwanted attention, pinned down.  While it is unclear from the fragmented and distorted accounts (those Drakonions and Illithids who reported back were tortured to death for their failure  before they could actually report, so the only official records of the incident are more screaming than useful information) where the encounter took place or even if it was on a planet or in space, there were vessels involved.  The odds were not in the Psychics favor.  At the climax of the battle, only nine Psychic ships remained while over one thousand Drakonion warships remained.  Despite these dismal odds, these nine ships survived.  At the last minute, someone was able to â,¬Å"stitchâ,¬Â all nine ships through the space-time continuum to another place, thus saving the nine.  The knowledge to do so was spread to the other psychics, though it is pretty clear that not everyone was allowed this knowledge, and the ships went on to found nine separate colonies, which would eventually start a critical revolution in the Draconian Empire, but no more of them, for we speak of the Elves.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Of the Ancient Elves]The Elves arose as a civilized race in their own right, long before any outright interference from the Drakonions. (The sector which Val'Doro is in is fully mapped, but as it was far away from the center of the Drakonion Empire and had no special resources, it was of little interest)  They coexisted with an unusual number of sentient life forms, often combatively.  The most notorious were the Gonrel ( now blessedly thought to be extinct) intelligent dinosaur-like reptiles who possessed substantial psionic power.  So fierce and deadly were the Gonrel, that the elves had to abandon any city that was within their reach, no matter how heavily defended it was.  They only survived by either fleeing into the canopies of the great forests or going underground, thus forming two distinct races of tree dwellers and surface dweller:  the elves and the G'Noman, respectively.  The elves have long limbs to swing from tree to tree with, while the G'Noman are small, allowing them to squirm through crevices in caverns and such.  The two are strikingly similar in facial and proportional appearance, though, and their genetics are as similar as most non-related humans are to one another.  This allows them to breed together and produces the nefarious and impious Elfkins, fantastically beautiful beings with a knack for promiscuousness.  As ugly as Elfkins are beautiful, and as wise as they are wicked, are the gremlins, offspring of Elfkin and G'Noman.  Gremlins closely resemble Yoda from Star Wars.  Besides some reptoids, these races, the gremlin, elves, gâ,¬,,¢noman, elfkin, and gonrel, were the only notable races until it all changed about ten million years ago.[/spoiler]


[spoiler=First Contact]A Psychic vessel crash landed on the continent now known as Ald Drakonis, much of which was comprised of mountains and jungle, after a run-in with a Draconian vessel.  Afraid to give off a distress call for rescue, they found themselves stranded on the planet of Val'Doro.  They thanked their lucky salts when a party of elves approached them.  The cast-a-ways felt that they had little to fear from the natives, as the Psychics had become quite adept at telepathic suggestions to treat.  What they had not counted on, were the Gonrel.  A group of them had been tracking the group of Elven warriors ever since they had descended from their tree-forts to investigate what had lit up the sky during a religious observance.  The elves, you see, had a sophisticated Pantheon, not Aeâ,¬,,¢Dei Draks.  The Elves were disturbed to find an alien race.  They were quite perturbed at the attempt to implant thoughts into their head by the Psychics, which they were quite resistant to (an elve that could not resist a Gonrelâ,¬,,¢s suggestion to walk on the surface and play with it did not survive long).  But they had no time to express insult, as, excited by the display of picnics, the Gonrel commenced to attack.  The two parties, the elves and the Pychics, joined forces and fought the Gonrel off.  What respect had been lost due to the failed telepathy attempts was regained by the Psychicsâ,¬,,¢ prowess in battle.  The elves now regarded them with wary neutrality.  A soothsayer or chieftain of some sort, who perhaps possessed some psionic abilities of his own, decided to open his mind and engage in telepathic communication.  The Psychics were soon enmeshed in the elven culture and, if not accepted with open arms, they were pleasantly tolerated.  A few decades passed and the crew was evidently mixed gender, as they produced offspring.  Halve-Elves were also produced, but it seems that they were treated as the elves treated misshapen babes:  as bait to ambush the Gonrel.  Distressed by this barbaric practice and others, as well as the fact that the Psychics seemed to be aging faster than normal, the cast-a-ways decided that it was probably safe to call for help and get off of Val'Doro.  They could not have been more wrong.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Settlement]Believing his wife and brother to be dead or captured, the owner of the ship that crashed on Val'Doro, Erim Keller, had teamed up with some smugglers/pirates and used his powers to stitch through space and cause havoc on Drakonion ore transports.  The reason that the Keller's ship had been in a fire fight with a Drakonion ship to begin with lay in that a mining facility was being installed very near the star system in which Val'Doro was in.  Erim Keller had been ravaging this facility for almost a decade with his pirate allies, trying to avenge his brother, when he received his brother's distress beacon.  Just as Erim was racing off to investigate the crash site with a rekindled warmth in his heart he had not felt in years, a small fleet of Drakonian war vessels arrived, Erim finally having pinched a nerve in the empire with his recent murder of a senator's captain-nephew while overtaking a ship.  The signal was deactivated within an hour of the fleet's arrival, but it was too late- they had traced it.

At the first site of the small but imposing fleet, the pirates contacted Erim and told him of their plan to retreat.  But he wanted to salvage whatever he could and get all of his people off with him.  He convinced about six other captains to join him, believing Valâ,¬,,¢Doro to be a clever place to avoid detection with its volcano craters that could conceal a ship or two.  For once, Erim was not a fool.  The small fleet was merely the hammer of a larger fleet, which smashed the pirates attempting to flee against its much larger anvil before continuing to where they had traced the  distress beacon.  All they found was the crater from where the Keller's ship had been removed.  After a sweep of the planet, the fleet departed the planet but stayed in the vicinity.

It is in the dead volcano of Mrarâ,¬,,¢Nâ,¬,,¢Go where humans had their first encounters with the Gâ,¬,,¢Noman.  At first intrigued by a race of elves half their size, the Psychics were surprised to discover that the Gâ,¬,,¢Noman were gifted engineers.  Using the salvaged parts, the crews of the Kellersâ,¬,,¢ two ship and the Pirates salvaged the Kellerâ,¬,,¢s wrecked ship and two of the pirates ships which had been damaged in scouting skirmishes to build the tenth colony of Antichio, allegedly under a sandy desert and accessed by landing on the loose sands and just falling through.  Scans of the atmosphere showed that it was mildly toxic to humans, though not to the natives, which is why the first cast-a-ways had aged so quickly.  Erim carefully smuggled in some bacteria that would sustain a self-contained and non toxic environment for Antichio indefinitely.  This was later emulated by later settlers who were poisoned by the atmosphere.  To this day, Drakonians or humans from non-mixed stock (the majority of the population is halve-elve, today) loose years off of their lives if they spend any significant time outside their self-contained environments, cutting their average lifespan to less than one hundred years while out in the world.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Commerce]After a century of military presence in the sector, Drakonion forces finally left, as the mine was depleted.  Erim enjoyed a short lived peace as Val'Doro became a haven for smugglers.  But when the ships looking for him had circled the world years ago, the Illithid on board had had its curiosity aroused when the Gonrel were encountered, trying to call out to the crew.  As it was now retired, the Illithid traveled back to Val'Doro to pursue this curio.  He was successful and when he took it home to tout it about, it soon became fashionable to have such an exotic pet.  Hunters arrived and established settlements and, after encountering the elves, soon became traders.  The Illithid had long ago reinstituted that institution, as it lessened the protests of the humans when they took slaves as host bodies.  The hunter/slavers found a good trade there, and within a few centuries had a solid and bloodily won foothold.  With the passing of his moderating brother, Erim again yielded to his thirst for vengeance and committed several acts of terrorism against the new settlers before they figured out that they were being attacked.  These terroristic acts came at a critical point as the greatest, and perhaps only proper, city-state of Ech on the continent of Val'Doro had sent a fleet of sea-ships and was gathering an army of tribes native to the continent of Ald Drakonis under its banner.  Emboldened by the damage done by his hands, Erim contacted the Western General, as the leader of the Echese forces was known, and offered to teach him how to use defensive shielding, which rendered a lot of weapons which the Drakonions used on the surface but the elves could not reproduce, useless.  Erim was successful; and the ensuing three millennia of nearly constant bloodshed between man and Elve, the near total annihilation Eastern Elven culture and enslavement or murder of the people, and the official arrival of a draconian Sorcerer-general with plans to establish a permanent base on Val'Doro from which to rule the sector; this was all a result of Erim's successful lesson.

The bloodshed was a stalemate, a time where neither side backed down, yet could not march on, either.  That changed when the Sorcor-general Nuem Iatus arrived with his Drak allies.  Never before had the world of Valâ,¬,,¢Doro been touched by a drak, and the result nearly shattered the Elven forces as they remained.  Drawing strength from their absolute faith in their gods, the Elves had never seemed to waiver, making victory seem likely, as the human forces were slowly wearing out.  But through some act of sorcery, Sorcor-general Nuem Iatus managed to either trick the Elves into believing that he had killed their gods, or he truly did so.  Far from being the killing blow that would make them bow into submission as the Sorcor-general had hoped, it drove them into an insane killing frenzy which was in many ways actually worse than defeat, for it is said that it is here where the first Drak truly lashed onto this world and this people, making them truly a part of the Drakonian Empire.  The elves called for blood, and the Ae'Dies of slaughter answered, granting their request as it drew on their hatred to feed itself and to make itself a part of Val'Doro.  Meanwhile the Sorcor-general Iatus recovered in his newly erected sanctuary tower, a portent of things to come, Iatus being greatly weakened from whatever he had done to drive the Elves into such despair over their old gods, ashamed that draconian forces were falling back because he was too weak to offer leadership, but pleased that a new dawn had begun. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=New Dawn]Many of the western elves who could not embrace the Drak as gods commited suicide, but it would be fair to assess that half of the elves were eventually able to accept them, though some with much nostalgia.  But Sorcor-general Iatus was not yet satisfied:  the Elves were defeated but not conquered and he was out to make a name for himself.  By the time almost half of a millennium had gone by, with the Drakonions slowly regaining and gaining ground on the lands lost during the slaughters the Elves managed to summon as their counterattack and way of mourning over their old gods, the Sorcor-general was getting impatient and older.  Bolder, too.  He had amassed some allies that were not on the right-side of Drakonion law, or on the very edge of it at least, and certainly on the wrong side of the ethos coin.  He was after the ultimate war beast, one that would expedite his conquest ten-fold at least, for while he by now more or less controlled the continent of Ald Drakonis, the mountainous place where the Keller's first crashed, he had barely a foothold on the continent of Val'Doro, where the cusp of Elven civilization lay and from where most of the elves who now fought him came.  He experimented with several tactics and beasts but remained unsatisfied.  Until the Drak/Gonrel hybrid , or Drak/Gon, was first implemented, nearly seven thousand years ago.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler=Races]The native races of Val'Doro are the Elves, G'Noman, Elfkin, and Gremlins (Elfkin /G'Noman offspring)  There were also the Gonrel, but in my first campaign using the Val'Doro setting, they are all but extinct and will probably never be a playable race anyway.  the Elfkin claim that they are the mother race and that their otherworldly beauty is proof of that, as it was bestowed upon by the Old Elven Gods that Sorcor-General Iatus may have murdered.  Whatever the case may be, there was a mother race from which both the Elves and G'Noman descended from.  Probably due to the Gonrel's sudden spread, the mother race had to flee the surface, some becoming tree dwellers, ancestors of the Elves, and some becoming denizens of the subterranean world, ancestors of the G'Noman.  despite this evolutionary branching, while their cultures, height, social structures varied greatly, their genetics show no more variation between the two races than human races do.  Even more bizarre is that Elfkin are the result of a union between Elves and G'Noman but display a considerably different gene sequence then either of their parents.

 [spoiler=Elves]I think I'll be using elves as the base race, like the humans are used in D&D's PHB.  Elves are the most human-like race of those indigenous to the world of Val'Doro.    Because of their turbulent history, the extra feat attributed to humans in the D&D's PHB will be attributed to them, as well as extra skill points.  as they co-evolved with the Gonrel, who were  psionically gifted, they are still resistant to "enchantmints" and sleep spells.  They will also retain their keen senses(+2 to spot, listen, and search checks, low-light vision), as the canopy is a dangerous place.  I could see dexterity having a bonus, but I don't want to touch the constitution, and they may be too good already and are not, after all, swing from tree to tree (most aren't at least, and I don't want to get into subraces yet.)

  Elves are slightly lighter and shorter than humans, on average, and tend towards darker hair, though light hair can be found in the cooler climes.  Eye color varies greatly.  An Elve can live up to half of a millennium.  Males and females are about the same height and weight with females being slightly heavier during their child bearing prime (60-100).  Males often have facial hair, though it is fashionable for younger men to shave regularly.  Elven culture is very diverse and extends across almost every, if not every, climate on Val'Doro[/spoiler]

[spoiler=G'Noman]G'Noman are subterranean cousins of the Elves.  they are noticeably shorter than the Elves, only being just over half of their height, enabling them to fit through places in the earth that others cannot.  They are great stone craftsman and miners.  both male and female G'Noman have small beards and mustaches, though females' hair is a fine fuzz, interspersed in which are fine whiskers which give them dark vision.  there are also whiskers in their eyelashes and behind their velvety ears.  their often curious nature, fuzziness, grace and longer whiskers which protrude from under their nostrils give them a feline appearance.  G'Noman never shave, as that would require cutting off their whiskers, but generally keep themselves well trimmed.  they can live up to 450 years.  I don't think there will be much difference between this race and the gnomes in the PHB.[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Elfkin]The offspring of G'Noman and elves, Elfkin are feindishly clever creatures.  They resemble the imp-like version of elves found in some folklore and possess an otherworldly physical beauty that other races find incredibly allluring, which is no doubt aided by their ability to produce pheromones at will.  their penchant for cruelty is only surpassed by their efforts to hide it.  promiscuous and greedy, Elfkin often use sex as a weapon to gain power for themselves, as certain chemicals they produce are addictive.  Despite their wickedness, Elfkin have an affinity to music, poetry and other fine arts.  Elfkin are about as tall as a humans shoulders.  elfkin usually have fair hair and skin. despite what their parents looked like, and can change their eye color at will.  They can live up to 575 years.  I think that they will have a great deal of charisma but low constitution[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Gremlin]gremlins are as physically repulsive as elfkin are attractive.  they are the offspring of the elfkin and G'Noman.  they stand slightly taller than G'Noman and are often disfigured.  They are generally despised by elfkins and thus move to isolated caverns where they live with each other in monastic orders.  they have above average strength, especially for their size, and due to their intensive training and the constant threat of enemies from the underdark, they have developed a fierce reputation as martial arts masters.  They often have a strict code of conduct and do not mate very often, as if to make up for their parents promiscuousness.  They resemble yoda from star wars, but are usually a tallow color.  They can live to be about 450 years old.[/spoiler]  [spoiler=Drakonion]Humans.  They arrived on Val'doro first as refugees then as conquerors.  They have above average inteligence scores but the atmosphere is slightly poisonous to them, it incures a constitution penalty to them.  they once lived for millennia within their towers and contained settlements, but due to inbreeding and medical knowledge and technologies becoming lost to time, within the towers they barely exceed the elves.  Outside of their settlements, which more and more are doing to integrate themselves into the population, they never exceed the age of 120.  They are the fifth most common race on Val'Doro[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Or'Ke]Or'Ke, who were introduced to val'Doro as a slve race under the Drakonions, are big, brutish looking creatures covered in intricate tattoos from tip of skull to tip of toe.  These tattoos have special meanings to the individual and tribe and are as unique as fingerprints.  Despite their well deserved reputation for brutality, they are actually quite intelligent and are excellent architects, as the city of Nycea can attest to:  Even if it is rotten to the bone, at least the rot stops at the  beautifully crafted bones of stone the Or'Ke built it out of.  They are a hardy, physically strong people, but despite this, they suffer more extensively to the toxins present in Val'doro's atmosphere than humans do and thus develop strange diseases.  In Drakonion filtered atmospheres (Drakonion towers and settlements), Or'Ke have a +2 constitution bonus, but retain a -2 charisma penalty because, while they may not be developing any new ailments under these atmospheric conditions, their bizarre tumors still ooze and reek.  these legions often cause such extreme pain that the Or'Ke are driven into madness and commit violent acts of rage.  Or'Ke nobility, few that there are, who live in Drakonic settlements all of their lives have been known to reach 250, but Or'Ke out in the world only have a lifespan of 90 at the most.

***Drakonion atmosphere is just lacks toxins within the atmosphere of Val'Doro, and is not poisonous to native races.  all of the elements that those races breathe are present in Drakonion air, but the toxins which the native races can filter out of their blood but that non-native races cannot are absent.***[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Org'Ke'Dra]Half-orc, drakonion/or'ke, more later[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Dwar'Vren]dwarf, elfkin/Org'Ke'Dra, have whiskers and darkvision like the G'Noman, more later[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Halven-Elvan]  half-elves.  actually, i was thinking of re-designating these as my base race, as they are more common than humans...also, due to native blood in them, they have no health problems with the exotic atmosphere.  but anyway, the name seems alittle silly to me right now, but I don't want just half elve...maybe these will become just "human".[/spoiler]

  [spoiler=Hob'goblin]means "high goblin", halven-elven/Org'Ke'Dra, more later[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Halffolk]  halflings, elfkin/drakonion, more later[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=Brae'don]dwarf/Drakonion[/spoiler]

 [spoiler=drow]This one gets a bit tricky, as it has more to do with mentality than genetics.  Elves had just established a truce that was pretty acceptable to their liking with the Drakonion stronghold on the Island of Nycea, when the Or'Ke slaves, who had been planning an uprising for quite some time, saw this as weakness and thus struck.  It was a bloody and, ultimately, futile attempt which resulted in the rape of several elves and destroyed the peace which the elves had gained.  the offspring of those raped became known as the drow, and all the Or'Ke were reviled by the elves everywhere from then on.  because of the feircness of their hatred for Or'Ke, elves put any offspring between Elve-blooded and Or'Ke-blooded to be the accursed drow.  This, however, does not include the Dwar'Vren, offspring of Elfkin and Org'Ke'Dra, but does include elve/Org'Ke'dra offspring.  It is because of the elfkin's wickedness that the elves have never considered them to be their own kind, so Dwar'vren are not considered elve-blodded, though they are or'ke-blooded.  they are still not thought of as much better than the Or'Ke, but they are not loathed as the drow are.[/spoiler]  [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Drak]The Drak is, in many ways, the antithesis of the black hole.  The black hole sucks things in, and once something enters it, it can never escape (at least in this dimension), but the Drak throws things out and nothing can enter it (again, at least not in this dimension).  And, as a black hole has no will or sentience of its own, a Drak possesses both.  But they are not completely different: both cannot reproduce, are not truly part of this universe as any psionicsists could attest to, and both can possess a living beingâ,¬,,¢s body.  I will talk more about black holes and their possesion of bodies when the topic of the Vampire Lords and the undead in general arise, but for now, let us focus on the Drak.  While Draks cannot actually reproduce, and are therefore not a race, they can infuse another creatureâ,¬,,¢s essence with theirâ,¬Â¦presence.  This often consumes the flesh from the inside out as the being itself emits energy from its very DNA, but if the being is willing and able to enter a state of mind in which it can consciously control and suppress its bodyâ,¬,,¢s natural rhythms, which slows the energy release and thus the consummation of the body, enabling the being the chance to reproduce.  If it does so while possessed by the Drak, the resulting offspring will be imbued with some of the Drakâ,¬,,¢s energy, though at a much less lethal level than the original host.  However, a Drak has never successfully reproduced using a psionically gifted creature.  The reason is rather obvious, if you think about it.  A creature must be willing to be possessed so that it can keep the state of mind which will prevent the Drakâ,¬,,¢s power from consuming it for a while.  Draks, like black holes, are not connected psionically to everything else like everything else is.  When the Drak possesses a psionics user, the part of the user that is connected to everything else is severed, which is such a devastating blow to someone who is so acutely aware of this connection, that the psychic cannot retain its concentration, and is then consumed by the Drakâ,¬,,¢s cosmic powers.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Magic]
[/spoiler]

Cultures
 [spoiler=Ald Drakonian][/spoiler]
 [spoiler=Octavian][/spoiler]
 [spoiler=Nycean][/spoiler]
 [spoiler=The Coronas][/spoiler]

Bestiary
 [spoiler=Drak/Gons]The Gonrel, it is well documented, were powerful psioniscists.  The records on how Sorcor-General Iatus and his allies, chiefly the mad scientist known only as Taur (or Tor), managed to infuse Gonrel with the spirit/essence of Draks has always been a mystery, and any records made have likely crumbled to dust eons ago, if they ever existed at all.  There are, nonetheless, several explanations offered by scholars

The most popular is the theory that Sorcor-General Iatus, having supposedly killed the old gods had enough power to command Draks to do whatever he willed.  He then either, depending upon whom one listens to, attracted an ambitious Gonrel or used Compulsion on the Gonrel to make it obey.  Either way, the first Drak/Gonrel was made, who was a male named Metasus.  The next drak/gon was  created in much the same way, if that is the way it was made, except that an unwilling egg was used, so that Taur could produce a female.  He was unsuccessful the first time and produced a second male drak/gon named Chromatus.  
[/spoiler]

Hi there--I wanted to say that your general concept looks intriguing, but the history is a LOT of stuff to read in a huge gulp. Would it be possible for you to consider putting the history into a sort of chapter based format?

I would perhaps if it were me put it in the form of questions, such as:
Who were the Drak?
What were the Draks' aims?

Or in the form of statements that lead to further information:
The Founding of Elvish Civilization
First Encounter with Humans
the Tale of Erim Keller

and so on.

Hello!

I  think your setting is in the beginning stages of what looks like a fairly good design. I really like your concept of magic originating from the Drak, although, I have a couple of questions:

-These Gonrel, while thought to be extinct, are actually in hiding, I assume. So, why? The elves had a hard enough time beating them the first time around, and only won because of guerilla tactics. All they have to do now is simply copy the elves tactics, and conterstrike now.  

-The Draks complied with the Illithids, when they wanted the Draks to destroy the only way around the Illithids? Why? If they could teach the Human Psychics to do the same thing the Illithids do, then they wouldn't have to bend the knee anymore and they would have competition to the Illithids. If they couldn't, then the human psychics weren't a threat to the Illithids, and it wouldn't matter. I'm somewhat confused by this situation...

The Truth
[spoiler=The Dregs of Society] Little is truly known of the Drakonian Empire.  Indeed, even its fate is a mystery.  But there is no doubt it was (or is) an unimaginably  massive, even galaxy(s?)-spanning, entity with a strict hierarchy and sense of order.  There is also compelling  evidence that this power was extremely centralized and localized, and that the further away from galactic civilization, as it were, one was, the lower one was in the hierarchy.

And Val'Doro was very far on the fringes indeed, and of absolutely no importance tactically or economically.  It was but one of the many fringe places where the greatest disgraces and failures slunk off to die in anonymity.

There were some Drakonian dregs, however, who took a new lease on life once they realized how lucky they were.  For Val'Doro, as relatively cut off from civilization and amenities as it was, was an entirely different beast than most other places of exile.  It possessed a habitable ecosystem, to start. [spoiler=Lifespan] Long-term exposure drastically reduced life span, however, as direct exposure led to respiration.  Due to the long-term health risks of processing oxygen and its free-radicals in this manner, the Drakonions had of course developed a respiration-alternative long, long ago. Indeed, any closed-system Drakonian structure still retains an operating respiration-alternative system.  Many of the citizens (at least the wealthy Drakonian and Or'ke citizens) of the great cities of Ald Drakonis never step foot outside of the closed system of the upper levels and thus never truly breathe.

 The Or'ke find respiration extremely detrimental even in the short-term.  Although they possess the necessary anatomy and have proven capable of doing so, the Drakonians who bio-engineered them did not in fact do so with the serious possibility of respiration in mind.  As such, inflamation, pain, and tumors are the characteristics of a respiring Or'ke's mere decades-spanning life, reducing them to savage beasts in many cases.[/spoiler]

 Most of the immigrants became occupied with carving out a niche in this new society using whatever pitiable knowledge they brought with them.  As often as not, this involved capturing and selling elves and other natives as exotic slaves or pets or even cuisine.  Those who were sufficiently adequate at this task eventually brought the hardy Vren and the expensive Or'ke to Val'Doro as affordable and transferable amenities.

While others apparently sought redemption and glory, in the vain hopes of being welcomed back from the fringe.  How this was to be achieved in a place where no polite company took any interest is unknown.  But the most foolish of the dregs  took no heed of this.  Sorcor-General Iatus, considered the worst and most disgraceful of all the Drakonian officers in the history of the Drakonian Empire, it is said, was such a fool.  With a reputation such as this, one must wonder if he truly sought some form of redemption or vindication, or if it was merely blood-lust.  [/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Sorcor-General]Iatus was exiled to Val'Doro, deemed not worthy of suicide it is said.  With him came a tiny contingent of soldiers who were too cowardly to die in disgrace, it is also said.  Whatever the case, Iatus and the Drakonian force he brought with him was the farthest thing from the grand army the Elves imagined the Drakonians had sent to oppress them.  Had the Drakonian military truly taken the slightest interest, the elves would have found themselves completely subjugated before a week was through.   Even the smuggling and piracy ring operating off of Val'Doro had ceased to be a military issue, for the Illithids had been given sanction to deal with this problem at this point in Drakonian history.  Indeed, that was the sole reason a space hub was present on backwater Val'doro, as the slave trades was not worth the costs, in reality.[/spoiler]