History of Istria

Istria has been transformed over time through five distinct ages. Each age brought a significant change to life on Istria, as such, they are each measured by their own number of years.

Creation of Istria and the First Age (Void - 1200 FsA)
Before Istria existed, the Material Plane was an empty void, between the Elemental Chaos and the Astral Sea. Rivulets of pure essence meandered through the Elemental Chaos and coalesced into an enormous sphere of raw elemental energy, and this sphere became Istria.

Istria floated in the through the darkness of the void, devoid of life despite the elements raging on its surface and in its depths. Soon, the inhabitants of the Astral Sea came to notice the new planet. One of the first to descend to Istria was Ktul, who brought the first life to Istria, fashioning the first beasts of the world in secret, deep under the earth and the seas.

After the arrival of Ktul, the god Borias and his wife Austral came, calmed the sea and sky, and rooted the continents in place. After they had made Istria placid, Borias first created the race of dwarves, then Austral created the race of humans. The couple filled Istria with plants and animals, but they quickly died in the darkness. Without sustenance, the dwarves and humans began to starve. Borias saw how his wife was grieved by the deaths of the humans, and Austral saw that her husband was mourning for his dwarves. Wanting to save the humans and dwarves, and to make her husband happy, Austral decided to transmute her life energy into a star. Without telling her husband of her decision, Austral leaped into the sky and became the star called Atlo. Unknown to Austral, Borias had chosen to make the same sacrifice for her, and vaulted into the sky to become Chende.

Istria soon caught the attention of others from the Astral Sea, some of whom had less pure intentions. Within decades of the creation of humans and dwarves, the surface of Istria was overrun by demons until the mysterious arrival of divine couatls who drove the demons underground. Occasional rumors are all that have been heard of either the demons or the couatls since then.

Bael Turath, Arkhosia, and the Second Age (0 - 352 SA)
By the Second Age, tangible historical documents began to emerge discussing the goings on of the planet, as opposed to legends of yore. Centuries ago, the world was divided into two great empires: the tiefling empire of Bael Turath in the east, and the dragonborn empire of Arkhosia in the west. However, both empires fell in the War of Ruin when they destroyed each other. Written record of this period is tragically sparse, as the War of Ruin was especially ruinous, but enough can be gleaned from surviving documents to paint a picture of the times.

A tiefling city in the east of Istria, Bael Turath was dominated by an adamantine tower, around which sprawled a city that covered nearly the entirety of Oemberaen, with stretches terraformed by a lost branch of magic in order to provide unusually high crop output in small, rooftop fields. The evident goals of the tieflings, as alleged in the holy text of the dragonborn, Voghet Ghraxurut, were to overturn the pantheon in the absence of the chief deities, Borias and Austral, imposing mortal rule on the Astral Sea via sheer altitudinous assault. Tiefling literature at the time confirms a desire to enter the Astral Sea via magical means, but conflicting views arise depending upon the writer as to the reason, with some religious figures aledging a desire to commune with the Pantheon, whereas political texts suggest a trans-planar assault on the neighboring continent of Arjkhann.

Irrespective of the reasoning, the intent to breach into the Astral Sea was so sacreligious to the dragonborn that they felt it necessary to invade the Tiefling continent and raze it to the ground. The resulting war led to mutually assured destruction, as battle magic had so advanced by the war's onset in 344 SA that leading arcane theorists predicted that the world could be destroyed thrice over by intercontinental war.

While the elven people of Il-etao were largely spared, as well as the underground dwarven communities and the human villages on the archipelago of Driestania, so brutal was the war between Bael Turath and Akhosia that dragonborn and tieflings nearly committed mutual genocide, leaving a power vacuum on the planet.

Mutated races rising from the ashes of the war included goblins, orcs, shardminds, and kobolds.

Nerath and The Third Age (0 - 271 TA)
After much strife, the world was united by the human empire of Nerath. Many of the civilized races of the world were joined together by this dynasty, and flourished in this new age. After centuries of rule, Nerath crumbled just like the empires before it.

The Dark Age (0 - 375 DA)
Duing the Istrian Dark Age, a few mighty adventurers rose and ascended to godship themselves. However, the residuum crisis of 256 DA plunged the planet futher into darkness, and any small groups of power that had consolidated around magic were swiftly overrun by barbaric overlords, who fought among themselves for over a century, until 375 DA, when an alliance of dwarven and human soldiers established the warrior-kingdom of Nordia, which quickly became legion and empire.

Nordia and the Fourth Age
After the Residuum Crisis of the Dark Age, numerous of the more acutely magical races slowly grew less numerous, leading to a coalition of dwarven and human leadership under a Nordianic empire. The popularity of the dwarven people historically, coupled with the might of the human race allowed power to be consolidated in their hands, uniting all the civilized peoples of Istria. However, hyper-magical races took the fall for the residuum deficiency, and most were labeled outlaws. While some were hunted to near extinction, such as dragonborn, genasi, and shardminds, elves formed an underground community of outlaws that actively fought a resistance movement against the empire. They united for the first time with eladrin and drow to form the banner of Sharonallel, and provided support for refugees of human and dwarven aggression, led by an elven woman named Ravaella Forgedawn.

Meanwhile, halflings were embraced with open arms by Nordia, and became integral to the mercantile sector of the empire.
 * 126 FA: Unlikely Bedfellows