Rise of Dwarfs and the Orc Wars

Era of Elves / ~250 thousand years ago
Around the time of the mass blood sacrifice of the elven Exiles, the dwarves seemed to finally gain a strategic advantage against their long time greenskin enemies. This is believed to be due mostly to the casualties inflicted by and then the withdrawal of the Exile armies during the years of preparation for their great atrocity. When they first warred under the earth, the Exiles were bitter foes in battle and they weakened not only the dwarves but the orcs greatly as well. With the withdrawal of the Exiles from most offensive actions, the dwarves managed to capitalize on having one foe again and began winning many victories over the weakened orc hordes. At this time the dwarves rarely travelled to the surface, and many of their cities didn’t even have surface access; however, the orcs had built surface strongholds above their cities high atop the mountains. Due to such resistance from the dwarves below, the orcs spilled out more and more frequently to the surface and down the mountains to pillage and raid elven communities.

From this mighty dwarven military push the orcs finally retreated from their focused attempts to conquer dwarven holds, and instead erupted onto the surface world in force like a tide of green destruction. The elves of the surface world dubbed this the beginning of the Orc Wars. Unfortunately, they were not prepared for such a numberless foe, for the elves had not warred on such a scale for thousands of years, not since the times of the Great Schism War. Cities burned, and elven armies once again marched across the world fighting to hold onto what they had built. The orcs for their own merit had managed to unite a large percentage of their forces under a single mighty warlord. This warlord led a massive push decimating dozens of elven cities before he was finally defeated. Then as orcs do, more warlords rose up and competed for supremacy, but all fighting their common elven enemies instead of one another.

During this terrible era the elves lost countless souls, knowledge, and culture. The dwarves stayed to their underground realms and rebuilt. They continued to keep the orc and Exile threats under control, but uncaring for what happened on the surface to the elves. Of course, that semblance of peace would not last long, for when the Exiles had become the dark elves and returned with their gray dwarf allies, the dwarves saw large scale war once again.

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