In the beginning...
Gods created; 3 highest Arelien, Mistarin, Elanzil
Other high Gods:
Ia - TN
Kelkhat - CE		// from Culruth
Saleth - CN			// was Seiluin
Kemi - CG

Damoril - LN - smith
Gormerit - NE
Several others...

Also various lesser beings were created.
Sensing a new plane, many spirits came from the Void.  Great among these was Acorin, who had a fair form and fair words, and drew many spirits to his following, who proclaimed him their King.  Arelien, Elanzil, and Mistarin went to Acorin, asking why he was trying to usurp their rule of this world.  He replied that he had been thrown out of his world by siblings jealous of his strength, and just wanted a quiet place to live.  But Mistarin was not fooled, and saw that he had been exiled because he betrayed his siblings.  At this, Acorin tossed aside his fair form and soft words and cursed them in anger, saying he would never be exiled again.
	Then began the Starlight War, so called because all that yet existed were the stars.  The Gods forged many mighty weapons in that time, the like of which have never been equaled, for much of the Gods' power passed out of them in later times, and they can no longer make such craft.  The smith of the Gods, Damoril, made great swords for Arelien and Elanzil.  Arelien's was like fire, and shone, like her eyes, with a flame, and it was called Anaris, the Sunsword; but Elanzil's was dark, save for the edges, which glowed with a pale white radiance, and it was like the dark of the moon, and was called Jisilek, the New Moon.  Mistarin would have no sword, but made for himself a sickle, and it held the light of the stars, and it is named Warigil, the Star Ring
	The other Gods also took up weapons, some that they made themselves, some that Damoril forged.  Kelkhat, the Dark Flame, wielded a jagged battle-axe, wreathed in black fire.  Kemi, called the Gentle, but whose temper is like the storm, carried a staff.  Ia, the Silent, the Binder, took up a pike, which shone with a cold, pale light.  Saleth, the Mystic, took no weapon, but used only his innate powers to fight the would-be usurpers.
	The battle was long and terrible.  Many spirits, and even some of the lesser Gods, perished at that time, before time began.  But at last Acorin and his forces were brought to bay.  Elanzil herself fought a final duel with Acorin.  He was a mighty Power, old and full of tricks.  But she had still the strength of a God new-born from the starfire, and she fought for her own world's future, and she prevailed.  Acorin was slain upon the point of Jisilek, and his death cry could be heard from one end of the Cosmos to the other.  His followers quailed then, and fought no more, and they were bound by Ia's power and cast from the world into the Void, there to wander wailing for eternity.
	But a small portion of his followers had hidden themselves, led by his lieutenant, Urlos, and they were not cast out or bound, and they lay low and thought thoughts of revenge.

	Now that the universe was safe from those who would take it for their own, the Gods came together for their Great Work: and they created the World, Kenor.  Arelien, Mistarin, and Elanzil, Kelkhat and Saleth, Kemi and Tyrali, Damoril and Gormerit many other Gods and spirits came into the new-made World.  There they made many beautiful and wondrous things, and they loved it well, the work of their hands.  
	Atar saw the work that his children and stepchildren had made, and he was pleased.  He raised his right hand, and smiled, and spoke to them, saying, "I will bless this work of your hands, and I will give into it a gift.  Behold! my younger Children: the Elves, who are strong of soul, and who will bring glory to the light; the Kerim, who are steadfast of body, and keen of mind, and who will seek in the darkness; and Men, who are great of heart, and swift and changeable, and who will swing the pendulum bewteen the dark and the light."
	But then his face grew stern, and he raised his left hand, and spoke again.  "But that you should not become over-proud of your creation, and that the balance shall ever swing, I place this one thing more into the world: the Dragons, the agents of Chaos, who will ever appear if the balance is not maintained, or ceases to move."
	And the creatures that he had named came into the world, and they were put in safe places, and they slept, the Elves in the deepest woods, the Kerim in the hills and rocky lands, the Men in places unknown, and the Dragons in all the deep places of the world: under mountain and sea.  And they waited for the time of Awakening.

	Before the time came for the Younger Children to wake, a darkness crept into the world from Outside; for Urlos, jealous of the power of the Gods, and of the beauty of the World which they had created, brought his hosts with him, and they came with stealth and in darkness, and were not noticed.  But they began to corrupt and deface all that the Gods made, and the Great Work was marred.  Soon the Gods perceived that something was marring and breaking all that they did, and found the dark spirits, and they were wroth.  But much of their own power had gone into the making of the world, and they could not fight the dark beings as once they had.  Though they tried, the enemy would always slip away, leaving behind confusion and darkness.
	But those who remained Outside were watching, and one, a younger sister to Arelien, Mistarin, and Elanzil, came at last into the world.  This was the Silent One, Ia, the Binder, and she took some of the world-stuff that yet remained unshaped, and she formed seven pits, the last of which was fathomless.  These she purposed to be the final resting-place for all who died within the world; and the last pit would be only for those of terrible evil.  But the first to be put into these pits were Urlos and his host, for she came upon them in their own darkess, which blinded her not, and she bound them, and cast them deep, deep into the last pit of the World of the Dead, which is called Ia after her who made it; and she placed veils between the seven pits, and guarded the last one herself.

	The Elves awoke first, on a night of stars, and they beheld the stars with wonder, and were glad, and they sang their praises.  And they loved also the woods in which they awoke, and praised the Lady of the Woods, gentle Kemi, who had taken Nature as her realm, and the deep greenwoods were her special love.  The Elves therefore loved Kemi, and worshiped her as their own Goddess; for though they had heard of other Gods and Goddesses, none seemed as close to their hearts as the Green Lady.  As reward for their love and worship of her, Kemi taught the Elves how to make use of the magical energies that all living things generate.
	Soon after, the Kerim awoke in their rocky places under the New Moon, and saw the beauty of its shining sliver, and made their own music to it, which was music of rocks pounding, and feet stamping, and voices raised in sudden shouts.  When the Elves heard this music, they found it unlovely and uncouth compared to their light voices raised in song; but they felt its joy, and so knew it for what it was.  The Kerim were taught by Saleth to hone and use the powers of their minds, and they worshiped him.  
	Now, the homeland of the Kerim was near to that of the Elves.  The mountainous region of the Kerim was called U'chyam; and it bordered upon the forest of the Elves, called Armantor.  The Kerim and the Elves were not friendly in those days, but nor had betrayal yet set terrible divisions between them.  There was little traffic between them, but they lived side by side in peace for an age.

	But all peace is broken in time, and Atar had so decreed.  The tranquility of Kenor in its childhood was shattered when the Dragons rose.
	They came ravening in, from West, East, North and South, and they were terrible in their fury.  They awoke from their long sleep and rose from their bindings to come destroy the peace of Kenor; and many lands they laid waste.  In the first terrible onslaught, U'chyam was blasted and all but destroyed.  The Kerim fled, coming into Armantor, which the Elves were defending valiantly against the Dragons.  Though they had not before been friends, now they came together, and allied to fight against this terrible foe.  Using the powers of the world and the powers of their minds and bodies, the Elves and the Kerim drove back the Dragons, slew many of the lesser Dragons, and finally bound the rest once again where they had slept in the deep places of the world.
	But the damage that they had wrought was great.  U'chyam was utterly destroyed, and much of the area for many miles around was a wasteland.  But because they had joined their strengths together to defend it, Armantor was largely unscathed by the depradations of the Dragons; and a great number of both Elves and Kerim had been slain.  Thus, the greater part of the Kerim came to live in Armantor with the Elves.
	It was at this time that many of both kindreds turned from their peoples, saying, "We are not safe all together.  Someday, the Dragons will rise again, and they will destroy Armantor as they destroyed U'chyam."  And they left, hundreds of both races, scattering upon the winds to the corners of the world.

	Now, though Ia had laid veils between all her pits, and though she herself guarded the deepest of them, still there were times when a spirit would escape from those pits, and if this happened, it could call forth other spirits to serve it.  During the time when the Kerim and the Elves were yet living together, Ia's vigilance slackened for but a moment, and a mighty spirit slipped past her guard, and raced up out of all seven pits, bringing with it a following of lesser spirits.  Almost at once, Ia saw this, but she could not stop them in time, and they were loose upon the world.  Ia knew that she could not leave her guard long enough to find and bind all of them, so she set one of her lieutenants to guard in her place for a short time, and came to Armantor.  She came to a handful of Elves and Kerim, and taught them the ways of binding the dead that walk.  These people were shown how to make their spirits shine brightly on the other side of the First Veil, that separates Kenor itself from the realm of Ia, which mirrors the land of the living.  They could also see and go deeper into Ia's realm at need.  Most importantly, they could find the true names of all the walking dead, and by those names command them to return to the pits of death, where their true path lies.  
	After teaching these few, she returned to her throne, and knew that the restless dead would be bound by her followers.  And soon, some of those she taught began to travel abroad, to find and bind the spirits.  Others remained with their people, teaching those with strong spirits and strong wills the skills they had learned at the feet of the Goddess.  

	In this way, the Kerim and the Elves lived for many long years.  But in some of the Kerim there grew a restlessness, and among the younger Kerim the worship of Kelkhat and Elanzil began to spread.  One young man, Kajin, was soon plainly seen to be the leader of this movement, and he burned with anger against the world.  His anger was first for the Elves, for he saw them as imprisoning his people, though this was not so.  "Soon, the Men shall awake," he said, "and they shall have dominion over all the world, and we Kerim will forever be forced to live in the forest with the Elves!"  He urged his people to turn from Saleth, and worship the darker gods, those who would give them power in war.  He exhorted them to leave the Elves forever, to find a new mountain home.  
	But the elders among the Kerim frowned upon him, and shunned his followers.  They saw the truth behind his words: he wished to raise the Kerim to become a warrior people, and put the whole world under their sway Ñ and all of them under him.  They, and many of the Kerim of the older generations, refused to listen to his words, and most of all those taught by Ia, for they had a higher purpose.  But Kajin's following grew daily among the younger Kerim, and at last he spoke words that chilled the hearts of the elders with fear.
	"We are leaving, and we will not return until we have achieved the true destiny of the Lya'kushan," he cried.  "Then all who remain, Elf and Kerim alike, will tremble before the power of the Arya'kushan!"  For Kajin scorned to use the Elven language, and in their own tongue, the Kerim called themselves the Lya'kushan, and Arya'kushan meant, "the high Lya'kushan", and was a title for the firstborn of their race.
	And Kajin took all his followers, and they left Armantor, and went west.  And many were relieved that they had gone: but the wise warned that they should not assume that they were gone forever.

	In mountains far to the west of Armantor, as the followers of Kajin were being stirred to rebellion, another race was awaking: the Dwarrow, the Stunted Ones, that Men called Dwarves.  They were formed by Damoril from the very bones of the earth, and he asked that the breath of life might enter them, and Atar granted his desire.  They were not as the first three races, Elves and Men and Kerim, and they were not flexible of mind, being hard and unyeilding like the stone they were formed from.  Most of the Dwarven race had love only for the working of stone, and later of metal and precious gems.  They did not practice the great variety of trades that the three original races did, for they were created by one who himself was narrow in aspect.  But their stonework, and smithcraft, they did with exceeding skill and craft.  
	And among them were some few who had skills inborn to forge strange powers into their work, and these creations bore greater magic and more enduring than those that mages of the world above imbued with power, for the powers the magesmiths imparted would not fade, unlike enchantments, unless the work in which they were placed lost its identity as whatever it was: a sword or helm or plough.  But among the magesmiths were few ever who would make implements of war.

	To these mountains Kajin and his followers came in time, but they did not soon find the Dwarves, for they thought not that anyone could ever live within a mountain.  But on the slopes of these mountains they began to make their homes, and soon they discovered those Dwarves who lived outside the mountains to grow crops or hunt for food.  They thought them at first just another sort of beast, and slew them out of hand.  Their manner changed little when they discovered that they were another race of thinking beings, for they believed themselves to be the greatest of all races, and with the most right to the mountains, though in truth there was more than enough space for all to live in peace.  
	And those that called themselves the Arya'kushan began themselves to diminish in stature, over time, and their tongue to become more like that of the Dwarves: harsh and craggy, like the mountains they lived in.  Only a few retained the height and pale complexion they had had when living with the Elves.  It was from among these that Kajin chose those who would return to Armantor, and plant the seeds of the destruction he hoped to reap.
	
	
	Not long after Kajin's dissidents were banished from Armantor, it became clear that a group of elves shared the same sentiments, and had turned in secret to the worship of Elanzel, Adira, and Kelkhat.  They were named Katachestel, the Accursed Elves, and banished from Armantor forever, along with their children and their children's children, unto the last generation.  Believing that they would most likely perish in the wildernessÑÑfor they were few, compared to Kajin's followersÑÑthe elves forgot about them.  
	But the Katachestel did not perish.  They were filled with hatred and a desire for revenge, but they knew that to attempt to carry it out was futile.  They traveled far through the darkness, and came at length to the sea to the south.  There were three among them, leaders of the worshipers of each of their patron Gods, who came up before them and spoke to them.  They urged them to forget about the forest and the elves who had driven them from it.  "Cross the sea," they said, "and on the other side, we shall make ourselves an empire!"
	As Adira had some dominion over the seas, she sent messengers to them to show them how besst to build ships that would survive the passage of the sea.  They took wood from a nearby forest, reveling in the destruction of the trees, and build three ships with sails like black gulls' wings.  They set out to the south across the sea, and came after many days of hard sailing to another land.  
	It was a very large island, and had cliffs all along the north side.  They sailed around to the eastern side, where they found a bay.  There they beached the ships, and claimed the place as their new land.  They dismantled the ships to make temporary dwellings for all.
	Using mighty magics, they raised temples to their own Gods within days after they arrived on the island, which they called Dortalenth.  Soon, they made quarries in the foothills of the mountains on the northern side of the island, and began using magic to bring stone back to the bay to build their great city, which they called Ostorald.  Within just a few months, the city was complete, and they celebrated their freedom from the continent of Terash and their Bright-Elven cousins.
	Over the next few centuries, they expanded to fill the island.  On three mountains, one to the north, one to the west, and one to the south, mighty temples were constructed to their Gods.  The worshipers of each God then tended to live nearer to their patron's temple.  Rivalries began to grow between the worshipers of each God, and they all began delving into deep, dark magics.  Some still lived in Ostorald, but it soon became a battleground for the three factions.  
	Their downfall was brought upon them by the followers of Kelkhat, who began to dabble in necromancy.  Before long, it was no longer dabbling, and they had brought ranks of undead out of the pits of Aya to fight for them.
	This brought the attention of Aya's servants in the world, the Bright Ones.
	Many Bright Ones in Terash began to feel the disturbance in the Veils on Dortalenth, and a large group of them came together to travel to the island and lay the dead to rest.
	At the same time, the war had become so terrible that the inhabitants of Ostorald fled into the caverns under the mountains, each to the underground city beneath the temple of his or her patron.  When the Bright Ones arrived, none walked the streets save the dead.  They returned the spirits to their side of the Veils and went searching for those who had commanded them.  When they found the gates into the mountains, they felt that the friends of those who commanded the dead had raised them, and sealed them with their own seals, to ensure that none would ever leave the underground cities.  Then they went to the temples, and cast the necromancers into the sixth pit of Aya and destroyed the temples themselves.  The mages and high priests who were not necromancers they sent underground to join their brethren.
	That they would not starve, the Bright Ones made sun tunnels in the mountains, allowing light into parts of the caverns that could be used as farms, and caused plants to grow there.  Then they left, returning to Terash.
	The Dark Elves did not cease their wars.  They made tunnels through the mountains, though the seals ensured they could never break through to the outside, and even tunneled through the deep rock underneath the center of the island.  They continued fighting in the tunnels, and continued researching powerful dark magics.
	None of them were ever able to break the seals put on them, and they knew that the could only be broken by someone willingly opening them from outside.  They were trapped underground, with nothing but their war.

	
	
(much, much later)
Age of Wisdom

	After the Third Dragon Rise and the Wars of Dust, in which some of the last of the evil Kerim nearly conquered all of Terash before they were destroyed in the Battle of the Crystals, any magic was viewed with deep suspicion.  This was largely provoked by the use by the so-called Arkerim of the all-but-forgotten psionic powers, and the discovery that there were those with Kerim blood among both humans and elves who also had such powers.  Many of these part-Kerim, though they looked mostly like humans or elves, had been suborned by those with pure Kerim blood and served them, or had always held allegiance to their pure-blood cousins.  People were terribly afraid that there were many more part-Kerim remaining hidden among them, and began to distrust the use of any powers not clearly belonging to the Gods.  In fact, it was the Church that fostered the distrust the most, partly in response to being targeted by the Arkerim due to their power to oppose their rise.  But most people lacked the knowledge to discern between psi powers and true magic.  Thus, the people who ended up being persecuted were mages, and the few part-Kerim who remained had the good sense to keep their psi powers secret to the grave.  
	After about 10 years, the distrust had risen to the level that some mages  were being attacked, even killed, and the number of people becoming mages had dropped by more than half.  Things were worse in areas where the Church had more control.  After about 50 years, the Lord Magi came together in secret to decide what should be done.  Up until now, there were only 2 real centers of powerÑÑand protectionÑÑfor mages, the Academy of Solis Maris in the east, in Kajima [later to become Kaje], and the United College of Wizardry in the West, high in the Starshield Mountains.  Most people went to small schools spread across the land to become mages, and only came to one of the two Great Colleges, as they were called, if they wanted to become Adept Mages or do serious research.  Now, the five Lord Magi proposed to make Mage Havens across the continent.  Each would use a tower of a High Magus or Lord Magus as a base, and add more outbuildings and fortifications to make a place where mages could come to be protected from the mobs who would drive them out of town or kill them.  
	So the mages came together, from all corners of Terash, and built seven Mage Havens across the continent.  In this time, since mages were concentrated together and, for the most part, could not travel abroad, a great deal of research in magic came about.  Also, since many of the conveniences that magic had brought to people were not available, some people started turning their thoughts to how they might make similar time savings without magic, beginning the long, slow progress of science in Terash.
	This time was called the Age of Wisdom by those who came after, for two major reasons.  The first is that the histories were primarily written by the monks of Lirosik, who, while they tried to be impartial, were still human, and, as members of the Church, felt that it was wise to be more cautious in dealing with those who wielded powers that did not come (so they maintained) from the Gods.  The second is that those in times much later saw the knowledge that came out of this time, and said that despite the hate that caused it, there was great wisdom that came from this time.