f the many races that inhabit Mundus, few are as influential as the qualis – the elves. Although they are but one people inhabiting this world, this ancient folk, who once inhabited the sacred realm of Qualior, are now but a shadow of their former selves.

Long ago, ere the many complexities of the world had been layered in, ere the first morsels of bread were tasted in the shrines of Aayur, the qualis awoke in the realm of Qualior: a remote island in the midst of the stellar seas, and there it was that the First Elven Empire was wrought into Mundus. The Old Gods bore them, so they say, as a folk chosen to rule Mundus and lead its people to victory.

Ah, those were the days of glory, when the magic of the elves knew no bounds, and with unchallenged power they dominated all that came before them. But alas, all things foul and fair must come to an end one day, and so it did for the elves, who for long had known no challenge.

When the veil of Mundus collapsed, daemons flooded the world, waving the unholy banners and marks of Morthaur, Destroyer of Worlds. And the elves answered with fire and steel, bringing down many a champion, but before the unbridled might of Morthaur they too fell like leaves in autumn.

One by one, their footholds and colonies were overrun, until at last the elves stared at the face of their own annihilation.

But when all hope was lost, Ayun the First strode into the mouth of danger, and battled Morthaur alone in his own realm. As Qualior was diminished, so was Morthaur and the daemon-tide. Thus the survivors, though homeless and astray, were gifted a second chance.

n the wake of the destruction of Qualior, the elves scattered across the face of Mundus, wandering the foundered world as lowly vagabonds, ever recalling the days of greatness when they defined the worlds they stepped on. Never again would the likes of their empire be seen again, or so they thought.

Seeing their pitiful condition, Elinor, patron god of elvenkind, showed them visions of a world much akin to their old one. "Alímar," they called it, Motherland in the Old Tongue.

As the news spread, the survivors gathered a fleet of eleven Clans and set course for Alímar. For two years they sailed the endless oceans of night, heeding not the stars nor the endless deeps which lay beneath them, until at last they happened upon Alímar, and they found it beautiful.

An archipelago in the middle of a flat plane, illuminated by the light of seven stars, Alímar was unlike anything they had seen before, yet it was homelier than anything they could or ever would come across. So were born the high-elves: the folk of Alímar.

For many millennia the elves gave up their lust for dominion, for in this world they dwelt deathless and deedless, in a permanent reverie blind to the ailments of mortality. And for ages they dwelt there, whilst the world around them arose and collapsed time and time again, until at last they learned of it.

One day a ship sailed into the harbour, aboard it elves from another world, and from there was shared ill news: much of Mundus, which was once a freehold, now bowed to the Aerryan Dominion, a foe beyond reckon who massacred elves by the millions.

Whilst the high-elves here relaxed under the seven stars, the world they had sworn to lead had fallen in disarray in their absence.

As word spread, the high-elves awoke, wrath filling their minds. "Deceit," they cried, "cozened by god or by devil most foul, what was this if not a ploy to remove us from power?"

"We must not," the sages warned, "should we leave to war, the girdle of Alímar shall fade away, and we shall remain immortal no more. Should you leave now to war, you shall lose your immortality and die like those below you."

And thus for long they argued, for many years they argued. Many elves left Alímar, establishing colonies and petty-kingdoms throughout Mundus to take the fight to the Aerryan Dominion, but to little effect, as they were far too few.

"This cannot be borne," at last said Darrian, grandson of Ayun, Emperor of Alímar, "sacrifices must be made to save our comrades, we will not let our kindred be oppressed."

Many a head nodded to that, long had the gods deceived them, no more. One by one the ships left the island, bearing with them warriors seen not for an epoch. One million warriors adept left their island empire and headed out into the vast world before them, setting up colonies wherever they went.

Where they made camp, our first cities were erected, where they made war, our first monuments were built, where they freed slaves, our first satellites were vassalised. In a decade, the world so diverse bowed to a new empire: the Empire of Alímar.

For sixty more years the wars continued, until at last the Aerryan Dominion was utterly obliterated, and for a while the Empire of Alímar, the Second Elven Empire, ruled all of Mundus. But the nature of mortals is not to be forgotten.

As the elves lost their only enemy, they found new ones in themselves: this world which they had once abandoned had grown up without them into a far different shape than they had left it in. What policies should we adopt now to rule this world? Should we follow the footsteps of the First Empire and forge ourselves a new one? Or should we abandon our old ways and settle for new ones which are based not on subjugation but assimilation and tolerance.

And thus the Great Schism occurred. At last Lord Darrian abandoned the throne and all his worldly possessions, taken by weariness and deathlessness. And as he left, the Second Empire, and by extension all of Mundus, found itself on one of two sides: the assimilation-oriented Red Elves and the conservationism-oriented White Elves, and thus began the Cold War between these two unions.

The House of Alinor, my House, was but one of the many Houses that followed Darrian out of Alímar and to war against the Aerryan Dominion. As Darrian departed, we found ourselves aligned with the Red Elves.

Our colony on Alledoria was where our ships first landed, over time the camp grew and Ostithil was established, and the State of Alinor was founded thence. Now we are but one of the many states that make up the Red Elven Union. So that is our story, and the story of the high-elves.

hough many heard the fables of Alímar, few believed them, for the tales came out to most as too outlandish to be believed in. Most elves instead sought to rebuild their colonies and form their own petty kingdoms. Alledoria was one of the first kingdoms of this kind, settled by the House of Alledor.

When they first arrived, the continent was naught but untamed wilderness stretching for thousands of leagues in every direction; once a lumber colony of Qualior, now an autonomous outpost with no homeland to export to.

"A fine starting point," the elves thought as they settled the land, venturing deeper and deeper into the forests, making pacts with the forest gods to ensure their survival. Thus the wood-elves were born, as those who settled the forests forgot their heritage and took up this new tribal way of life.

Whilst the Empire of Alímar reigned stagnant, the wood-elves rose and fell. They came as one House, and evolved into a thousand disunited tribes, their history and culture forgotten.

But then it came unlike anything they had known before: first a whisper, then a warning, and then a winter that lasted a decade. Rivers froze and forest withered, animals and elves shivered and fled southwards, but to little use. And in the darkness the ice giants invaded.

The forest gods put up a brave defence, but the ice giants could not be defeated. Those who complied were spared and vassalised, but those who resisted were slain, their domains were turned from lush forests to open grasslands.

But as the ice giants ploughed southwards, the wood-elves united under the banners of Aralon Dragonseer, calling to their aid the star-wyrms of Muldred.

The war waged for long, until at last on the fields of Angdor, Muldred the Great smote down the king of the ice giants with a breath of blue flames. As the king fell, his sergeants retreated, hunted down by the dragons.

As the invasion ended, the wood-elves who remained united in the southern forests. Under the banners of the Dragonseer Clan, the Forest Kingdom was founded. Silverhearth, a city forged by the long gone Grey Elves, was built their capital.

For many ages the Forest Kingdom remained, shifting now and then from a kingdom to a patchwork of tribes and back to a kingdom again in times of hardships.

Then came the Aerryan Dominion, a foe unknown, claiming for themselves the uninhabited grasslands to the north, yet the wood-elves ignored them, for the troops of the Dominion, well-versed in phalanx-warfare, would fray and wither in the woodlands. As time passed, refugees from the Dominion sought refuge in the forests, until help arrived.

When the high-elves of Alímar: legions of the House of Alinor, landed on the shores of Alledoria, the wood-elves rejoiced and welcomed their coming, joining them in battle against the forces of the Aerryan Dominion.

For two months the battles continued, the legions of Alinor winning victory after victory, until at last the wood-elves joined forces. The forces of the Dominion routed and frayed as the two-front war went terrible for them, in the end they surrendered and abandoned the world, though many of them remained behind and took to the life of farming.

Thus the war ended, and the State of Alinor was established, stretching from the Dread Wastes of the north to the Black Plains of the west, the river Angkreb of the south to the Scarlet Sea of the east.

The natives, the Alledor as they called themselves now, still remained in the forests of the south beyond the Angkreb, retained the Forest Kingdom as they always had, thus was brought peace to the two nations of the world.

With them the folk of Alinor brought medicine, education, politics and science, and the folk of Alledor taught them irrigation, farming, biology and animal husbandry. As the two unions were formed, the wood-elves joined Alinor and adopted their political systems for their own, even marrying their nobles and senators, thus was born the Alledor-Alinor Commonwealth.

But as their greed climbed, their demise neared. In the Arcaneum, the capital of the Commonwealth, when an experiment went wrong, daemons flooded the world, and once again were the two kingdoms torn apart, as the two kings, Aurendil and Avamanyar, were slain in the accident.

For three millennia the two nations stood disunited, and so they remain so far. But now that the veil of Mundus nears collapse once again, suddenly the high-elves are not the greatest of the wood-elves' worries.