Dawn of Human Civilization

Era of Man / First Age / ~100 - 40 thousand years ago
The Era of Man began roughly one hundred thousand years ago at the founding of the first human city. This founding was the beginning of true civilized life among humans on Valdemar, but it was small, fragile, and only made possible by the protection and teachings of the wood elves. Once some human tribes had learned from the elves animal husbandry and basic agricultural techniques, they were able to band together and feed more citizens, which supported large communal living. People were able to develop skills other than hunting and gathering that they then used to barter for the excess food produced by others, and the population bloomed. Slowly, humans that had learned these skills migrated from this cradle of civilization across Valdemar, and more towns and cities were established as local tribes learned from the visitors.

Over tens of thousands of years these new city-states spread along coastal waters, or on riverbanks where it was easy to provide water for farmland and the people. Tens of thousands of years later, human technology had advanced to the point where they could build long distance sailing ships. The wood elves taught the basics of sailing; however, they had long since stopped worrying about the need to travel across the seas and retreated to their forested realms. And so it took Man much trial and error, and advances in trade and craft skills to ‘reinvent’ sea faring vessels that could travel for months at a time across the oceans. This began a period starting roughly fifty thousand years ago which saw Man spread across the far corners of the globe. They settled the Far North, the coasts of southern Nethgulmar, and the far eastern continent of Ulthemar. Everywhere they went, the faced numerous threats from the local environments, and their current inhabitants.

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