III. The Rise of Nations
In the centuries that followed the First Elven Exodus, the settlements of Eldareth continued to expand. Villages became towns, towns became cities, and borders began to take shape as peoples gathered beneath rulers, councils, and laws of their own.
From these early realms came the first enduring nations.
The relationships formed during the years of rebuilding deepened as well. Humans and dwarves had already traded, fought, and formed alliances for centuries, particularly along the foothills and mountain routes where their settlements met. Agreements surrounding trade, defense, mining, and travel endured even as both peoples developed larger and more complex societies.
Human populations also continued to spread into new lands. Some moved from central Ethelra into Vel'Nathar, settling along coasts, rivers, and fertile valleys where elven communities founded after the First Elven Exodus had already stood for generations.
There they encountered established Falha'drin and Vaela'drin settlements whose histories in Eldareth stretched back centuries. Trade and cultural exchange followed, alongside occasional disputes over land and resources. In time, humans and elves came to share many of the same regions, beginning a relationship that would shape Vel'Nathar for centuries to come.
Elsewhere in Ethelra, many settlements developed into independent city-states with rulers, territories, laws, and customs of their own. Farmland, rivers, trade routes, mineral wealth, and defensible ground became increasingly important as populations expanded.
Some of these early powers endured and became the foundations of later nations. Others disappeared through war, decline, or absorption by stronger neighbors.
Temples remained an important part of life throughout much of the known lands. Some stood at the center of cities, while others served villages, roadside settlements, river communities, and farming regions. Priests and priestesses conducted rites, tended to their congregations, and oversaw ceremonies marking births, marriages, deaths, harvests, and the changing seasons.
Many temples also assumed responsibilities beyond worship. They sheltered travelers, distributed food during poor harvests, cared for the sick and injured, and preserved records that might otherwise have been lost between generations. In some places, they remained among the most stable institutions even as rulers changed and borders shifted.
Arcane magic also became increasingly visible.
Most known practitioners were sorcerers whose abilities emerged without formal instruction, sometimes recurring within the same families. Their talents varied widely, and no common explanation yet existed for why one person might develop such power while another did not.
Some entered the service of rulers, noble households, or cities. Others worked as defenders, scholars, advisers, or independent practitioners. Their abilities could earn respect in one realm and suspicion in another, particularly where arcane magic remained poorly understood.
There were still no institutions capable of teaching arcane magic on any broad scale. Knowledge passed between individual practitioners, remained within families, or survived in private collections of notes and observations. Ideas about the nature of sorcery differed from one realm to the next and often contradicted one another.
Religious life also became more varied as neighboring peoples came into closer contact. Established temples existed alongside household shrines, local traditions, and regional forms of worship that had developed independently over generations.
Most caused little concern.
Others proved harder to understand.
Reports began to circulate of secret gatherings, blood sacrifice, dangerous rituals, and pacts with extraplanar beings. Some groups followed powers whose names were unknown to established priesthoods. Others appeared only briefly before vanishing again, leaving behind little more than symbols, testimony, or the remains of their rites.
At first, such incidents seemed isolated.
That became harder to maintain when a spreading blight later remembered as the Creeping Rot began affecting forests, waterways, farmland, and inhabited regions. Plants sickened, animals carried disease into nearby settlements, and some lands were abandoned when they could no longer safely sustain those who lived there.
Its cause was fiercely debated. Natural disease, corrupted magic, divine punishment, and deliberate poisoning were all blamed in different places. Familiar remedies often failed to contain it, and even unaffected regions became increasingly wary of sickness spreading along roads, rivers, and trade routes.
The uncertainty changed how many rulers and temple authorities regarded secretive forms of worship.
Shrines were searched, suspected cult leaders arrested, and dangerous rites interrupted when they were discovered. Several nations eventually established inquisitions charged with investigating prohibited rituals, hidden worship, and supernatural threats within their borders.
Their authority varied greatly. Some worked alongside established temples, while others answered directly to rulers, councils, or local governments. What counted as heresy in one nation might remain tolerated in another, and the powers granted to inquisitors ranged from simple investigation to broad authority over arrest and punishment.
Many of these efforts uncovered genuine threats. Blood sacrifices were stopped, dangerous pacts exposed, and cults whose rites had already harmed those around them were broken apart.
Elsewhere, suspicion spread farther than evidence.
Unexplained deaths, disappearances, failed harvests, disease, and unusual magical events could draw accusations toward travelers, private religious groups, sorcerers, minority communities, or political rivals. Charges of forbidden worship became useful weapons in disputes that had begun for entirely different reasons.
Nor did destroying one shrine end the problem.
New cults continued to appear, often following different teachings and using names or symbols unknown elsewhere. Some promised strength or victory. Others offered protection, knowledge, healing, revenge, prosperity, or relief from hardship.
Their differences made any wider pattern difficult to recognize.
At the same time, the political landscape was becoming less stable.
Nations competed over territory, trade, resources, and influence. Old border disputes resurfaced as populations pushed into contested lands. Agreements that had once been sufficient between neighboring settlements became harder to maintain between kingdoms with armies, ambitions, and increasingly complicated alliances.
Rulers strengthened their borders and raised larger forces. Rival states accused one another of interference, broken treaties, raids, and support for dissidents. Disputes that might once have remained local began drawing neighboring powers into wider confrontations.
Then another sickness began to spread.
The Scab-Rot moved quickly through vulnerable populations, causing severe illness and physical decay. Treatments that had worked against other diseases often proved ineffective, and even divine healing struggled to halt its progression once it had taken hold.
The plague intensified tensions that had already been building for generations.
Some blamed hostile neighbors. Others blamed sorcery, forbidden rites, or divine displeasure. Inquisitions widened their searches, rulers looked for enemies within their own borders, and old accusations gained new weight wherever an explanation was needed.
By then, unrest was no longer confined to secret shrines or isolated outbreaks.
Armies gathered along borders. Alliances weakened. Grievances that had endured for generations hardened into open hostility, while efforts at diplomacy became increasingly difficult to sustain.
To those living through these years, there was no single crisis.
There were plagues and failed harvests, rival kingdoms and broken agreements, secret cults and forbidden rites, each with causes that appeared local and unrelated.
Few yet suspected that some of them were connected.