The Last Dark Age of Valdemar

Era of Man / Second Age / ~0 - 500 SA
Following the slow retreat south of the undead Valdemar was left in a dark age. The continent was in ruins, countless souls and knowledge had been lost, monsters ran amok, and the power structures of the last age were shattered or non-existent. The knights of the fledgling Order of the Sword tried to bring peace and security where they could, and the early years saw many coordinated war efforts against monstrous forces like the Troll Crusades. However, many new warlords and self proclaimed kings rose and fell across the continent when survival no longer meant hiding from the dead, and men returned to their old ways. New settlements were built upon the ruins of old, and the cycle of civil war and changing factions occurred all over again.

Over the next five centuries the political landscape slowly returned to a patchwork of city-states and small regional kingdoms. Many historians credit the quick return to civility of humankind to the surviving wood elves and dwarves. Both these races went against their respective traditions at the time to help men regain knowledge and rebuild. Especially of note is the resurgence of magical learning brought on by wood elves of the Storm Coast and Heart Vale. These elves felt blame and believed the loss to the humans would have been much less if they had not been left to their own for so long regarding magical study. For men generally feared magic, and the end of their first age saw much discrimination against those gifted with magic.

Another bright light to come from this dark age was greater relationships with the various isolated dragonborn tribes, who also suffered greatly during the War of the Lich King’s. While a proud and tribal species, this age saw many more dragonborn, and other rare races, add to the populations of human settlements. Dwarves and gnomes also became a much more common sight away from the major mountain ranges, bartering with others and expanding into new settlements across the continent.

Next Timeline Article