The Campaign Builder's Guild

In this thread I will post the history of my current campaign setting.  Here's the thing - it isn't finished.  What I'm looking for here is people to ask questions about what I've posted and I will answer them, allowing me to further flesh out this history.
NOTE: This history does not begin at the beginning of the world.  It begins when the Elvaan (ancestors of modern elves) begin recording things.
 
First Age
- Elvaan mysteriously appear in the world with no memories of who they are or where they came from.  The one among them who claims to have memories of their origin, an Elvaan named Eladri, quickly sets himself up as leader.  At this time, dragons and hobgoblins (and hags, the female hobgoblins) are already present in the world.

- The Elvaan establish the nation of Mhyt.  At this time an organization called the Order of the Watchers is founded to record all things.  The Elvaan people remain on neutral terms with the natives of the island continent.

- The origin of the Elvaan is revealed by Eladri as he leaves the world, again erasing the memories of all the Elvaan now in the world.

Natives
Goblinkind (specifically, hobgoblins and hags) and dragons are considered the natives of the island continent.  It is uncertain if they were actually native but they are called that because they were there when the Elvaan arrived.  Goblinkind has no form of writing so keeps no written records and no reliable oral records.  If dragons know of what was before the First Age, they tell no one.

Goblinkind
In the First Age, there were hobgoblins (males; means "great people" in the goblin language; hob = great goblin = people, person, ect...) and hags (females; means "female" in the goblin language).  They were relatively peaceful and lived longer lives than their kind do today.  They were very in touch with the natural world.

Elvaan of the First Age
Elvaan, the ancestors of modern elves, mysteriously appeared on the island continent with no explanation for how they had come to the world and no memory of their past.  In less than 100 years they established a nation under the leadership of an Elvaan named Eladri, who had apparently retained memories of their origin.  He told enough so that people would believe him but did not reveal much.  He said that, in time, all Elvaan would come to understand the heritage of their race and achieve godlike powers.  Elvaan were immortal.

The Order of the Watchers in the First Age
The Order of the Watchers was founded as a part of the Elvaan nation of Mhyt in the First Age.  Their duty was to record all events (including trade, births, deaths, ect...) that took place within Mhyt and anything significant that took place outside of the nation.  Their attention to detail was extreme.  All of this was stored in a great library that became the most important thing to the Elvaan people at the beginning of the Second Age.

Eladri
Eladri is a big bandit / pirate / thief from another world.  He is one of the immortal Elvaan.  He fled to the world of the island continent by using an ancient, powerful ritual.  One of the costs of the ritual was all the memories / experiences of hundreds of his people (who, being immortal, have a lot of those) and those Elvaan coming with him was unexpected.  To leave the world he performed the ritual again, explaining why he had to build a nation and wait so long.  The Elvaan people needed to recharge.

Origin of the Elvaan People
The Elvaan people are natives to an entirely different world.  They came to this world only by accident and had no memories of their own past.  This was an accident caused by Eladri.

Second Age
- The Elvaan use the vast and detailed library of the Order of the Watchers to 'remember' their history since coming to the world.  The people begin to divide.  Some still seek their ancient heritage and the godlike powers that were promised by Eladri.  This group is sometimes called Eladrin.  Another group, led by a charismatic Elvaan named Elf, seeks to make peace with the fact that this world is their new home.  These people, called the people of Elf or Elves strive to be one with nature.  For the time being, all remain united and Mhyt endure, only on an unstable foundation.  Rare mysterious murders fuel rumors of a secret third faction among the Elvaan people.

- The people of Elf formed an alliance with goblinkind to as to learn more about their environment from it's natives.  This alliance made dragons feel threatened by the potential power it had, should it ever be turned against them.  This fear provoked the dragons into organizing and making war against goblinkind.

- In only a few short years, goblinkind was nearly wiped out.  Elves refused to help their friends, not wanting any trouble with the dragons.  However, the dragons made a deal with the hobgoblins.  The agreement was that the dragons would no longer do any harm to goblinkind if they would, in turn, betray the elves.  Goblinkind quickly accepted and attacked a city held by the people of Elf.  The Eladrin came to the defense of their Elvaan brethren, using terrible magics that they had little understanding of.  The result was a crater that still exists to this day and magical fallout that caused changes and mutations all across the island continent (causing elvenkind, goblinkind, and dragonkind to become many different species each, over the course of many years.)

...and there is much more to come but you can start with this.[/size]

Is iy one of those *Poof - A flash of smoke* and "Here we are!!", or did the come thru some kind of gateway with no memories of their past histories/lives?

Quote from: Steel GeneralIs iy one of those *Poof - A flash of smoke* and "Here we are!!", or did the come thru some kind of gateway with no memories of their past histories/lives?

Good question.  It was a combination of both.  They didn't just appear, there had to have been a kind of portal involved, but they did not travel by choice.  At least as far as they knew.  They were just there and all together.


I also added a bit about the Elvaan.

[blockquote=Stealthy D]- Elvaan mysteriously appear in the world with no memories of who they are or where they came from. The one among them who claims to have memories of their origin, an Elvaan named Eladri, quickly sets himself up as leader. At this time, dragons and hobgoblins (and hags, the female hobgoblins) are already present in the world.[/blockquote]
Umm, it's an island.  Don't need no portals, boats might also work.  
they could be the last vestige/peculiar sect/ vangard and could have been sent here through some gods Fog of Forgetfullness.
For that matter, maybe they came from below and are a bunch of forgetful, disenfranchised Drow.

The Elvaan came from another world entirely, not just on boats.  I need to update this a bit more.

"The Elvaan people remain on neutral terms with the natives of the island continent." - So who are these natives? The dragons, hobgoblins and hags, or another race altogether?

The dragons and goblinkind.  Here, hags are female goblins.

[blockquote=Stealthy D]Eladri
Eladri is a big bandit / pirate / thief from another world. He is one of the immortal Elvaan. He fled to the world of the island continent by using an ancient, powerful ritual. One of the costs of the ritual was all the memories / experiences of hundreds of his people (who, being immortal, have a lot of those) and those Elvaan coming with him was unexpected. To leave the world he performed the ritual again, explaining why he had to build a nation and wait so long. The Elvaan people needed to recharge.[/blockquote]
This sounds like fun.  A con man trying to get out of dodge created a mass-exodus?  How many ended up being trasnported?  What did theybring with them?
How did this theif get such an obviously powerful ritual?

Yes.  The ritual didn't work quite as he had planned.  He expected that it would take him far away.  He probably didn't expect that it would take him to a totally different world.  He certainly did not expect that the ritual would bring all the victims with him.  That would indicate that he probably stole the ritual and wasn't totally sure about how it worked.

Only a few hundred were transported and all then had with them were what they had when Eladri used the ritual.  They were not expecting this to happen to them.  Once they were in the other world, though, they thrived.  They had to be there at least a few hundred years before they had enough collective experience for Eladri to use the ritual again.  In that time they obviously reproduced and whatnot.  That time in a different world may have even changed them to an extent, explaining why even the originals didn't return home when Eladri used the ritual a second time.

Updated a bit.

Interesting. You've got a fun foundational myth. I'd like to see how these events impact the rest of the world, especially theology and the Elf's sense of worth.

Quote from: Kapn XeviatInteresting. You've got a fun foundational myth. I'd like to see how these events impact the rest of the world, especially theology and the Elf's sense of worth.

The sense of worth thing is not so much an issue.  Since they all lost their memories and only read what happened, they were able to continue on their own paths.  Of course, the paths taken by the Elvaan people were divided.  Their interaction with the rest of the world is coming and it is epic.

Updated.

I like how you came up with the split for the elves smoothly (though elf leading to elves is a bit strange unless you are just considering it to be thanks to the Elvaan language structure).

It would probably be more from the human language structure, once they come to the island.  Eventually Eladrin also end up being called High Elves.  This is all considered to be more or less from a human perspective.  When the humans arrived, they could have not understood because of the language barrier and the Eladrin and Elves just went with it.  Elves would still probably call themselves the People of Elf and the Eladrin would probably still call themselves Eladrin or even Elvaan but to most outsiders, they are High Elves and Middle Elves.