History of the Damasian Elves

The Sundering War

No where are the adaptive and mutable natures of the elves more apparent than in the stories of the time known as the War of the Sundering. Long had there been conflict between the Eladrin on the Fae Isles who revered the power of the natural world and those who had been enticed by the secrets of arcane power. On Damasia, this once philosophical rivalry took shape as a struggle between two new races of Elves, the Kel’dorei (Children of the Wood) and the Gil’dorei (Children of the Stars). The Gil’dorei were largely emigrants from the Isle of Celenar, already considered exiles amongst the Eladrin for their delving into dangerous arcane mysteries, while the Kel’dorei were largely made up of emigrants from Valenar and Eladri who remained very closely tied with their primal heritage.

To the elation of the Gil’dorei, Damasia was a land filled with arcane secrets buried in ruins of past empires, particularly the Giants, from whom many of the early elvish arcanists learned a great deal. This wealth of knowledge gave them incredible power and influence, something which the Kel’dorei were not pleased with. Tensions continued to rise until even some Kel’dorei began to be seduced by the power of magic. For the druidic Kel’dorei this was unacceptable and had to be stopped. In response, violence broke out in the great Gil'dorei city of Dawnspire between the ruling council of magisters and the Druidic sect known as the Ravenclaw. This small incident, in which very few elves perished or were injured at all, would grow into a terrible war that lasted nearly two hundred years.

Finally, as the Gil’dorei were nearing victory, the druids unleashed their last resort: a terrible curse that would twist the Gil’dorei into a shadow of their former selves. In one cataclysmic moment, the curse fell upon the sorcerors, destroying their individual forms. As their forms shifted and writhed, they lost control of their magics and the land was torn asunder with arcane power. Fel-magics rained from the skies and erupted from the earth. The land between the Vale and the heart of Kel’thalas became a grey, barren wasteland, irradiated with fel-magic energy. The cursed mages fled in madness and despair as the magical wonders of their cities fell to ruin, leaving the land known as the Vale.

With the elves now sundered into two races, the Kel’dorei and the Shar’dorei, the war was ended, but at a terrible price. The great empire the elves had built on Damasia crumbled, leaving them strangers in a land whose destiny would be decided not by elves, but by Men.