Death Notice Book 8: Chapter 3: Great Elven Civilization

Release Date: 2026-05-23 06:22:50

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“Everyone, if the assumption that the caravan leader is an Elf is correct, then taking another look at the mission background provided by the Shattered Starry Sky, don’t you find it somewhat strange?” Qin Lun added with a smile. Hearing the young man’s words, the Apostles of the Fortress Team reviewed the mission background again, and then they all fell into deep thought.

Compared to other storyline races, the Apostles of the Devil’s Horn were very familiar with Elves. Among the five governing races of this Apostle City, there was the Moonlit Elf tribe.

Although the Elf species had many racial branches, most Elf races loved nature and embraced a self-sufficient forest life. They were not very accustomed to opening their cities and daily lives to other races, and compared to Humans, they seemed somewhat closed off.

Trade between Elves and Humans was usually initiated by Humans. Human caravans entered the forests, bringing daily necessities and luxuries like tea, porcelain, silk, and spices to exchange for Elf crafts and precious medicinal materials.

Such transactions often brought huge profits, but they were also very difficult to complete. The Elven Race always held deep suspicions toward human greed and cunning. Besides, most Elves had calm and indifferent temperaments and did not chase fame and profit like Humans did. The forest allowed them to be self-sufficient, and the items provided by Humans were not essential for their lives.

Usually, when giving a Guidance Mission or Main Quest, the Shattered Starry Sky would provide some brief introduction to the related mission background. Some aspects would not be very detailed, requiring the Apostles to make inquiries based on their own needs.

Of course, depending on the Shattered Starry Sky’s Exploration Rate of the Quest World, this information could be quite incomplete. The lower the original Exploration Rate, the more general the information would be, and vice versa, the more detailed it would be.

The current Exploration Rate of the Toril World was still very low, so the Star Void’s introduction to the mission storyline was also very general, basically only giving a rough world background. However, for the current main plotline, it still provided some historical materials about the Qiongda’er Forest region.

The Qiongda’er Forest region was located in the southern part of Faerûn’s central region. To the north were the Human Kingdoms of Qundas and the Vihong Sea. To the west was the Two Rivers Region, the continent’s breadbasket between the Alan River and the Naga River—the Golden Plain. To the south were the Fiers Mountains, where legends of Red Dragons still existed. To the east were the Meth Wooded Peaks and Viper Peak.

The Qiongda’er Elves were a branch of the Kaeldomo Elves. From 23,100 to 17,100 Before the Vale Era, during the first prosperous period of the Great Elven Civilization, a joint group of Moon Elves, Green Elves, and Dark Elves who had survived the Dawnbreak Curse, in order to stay away from the Elf civil wars stirred up by the Gold Elves, established a large settlement area in the Kaeldomo Great Forest (which included the entire area of present-day Tethyr, Amn, Calimshan, and Qiongda’er).

These settlements later formed three main Elf Kingdoms: Seopia with its bases in Amn and Qundas, Serthel in the Thornwood, and Eaerlann in the Winter Forest. The area of these forest settlements was so vast that it covered almost one-fifth of the entire Faerûn continent.

The present-day Thornwood, Amn, Winter Forest, and Qiongda’er Forest were all part of the Kaeldomo Great Forest at that time. Later, the Kaeldomo Great Forest was destroyed by fires from numerous wars, especially the two Dragon Wars and the five Crown Wars of the Elves, and split into the Forest of Dragons, the Darthol Forest, and the Tethyr Forest.

The Darthol Great Forest later split into many forests like Wealdath, Silvanesti, and Mir, while the Tethyr Forest further split into the forests of Amn, Thorn, Winter, and Qiongda’er.

In fact, the name Tethyr originated from the King of Kaeldomo. This Elf King was the first recorded Elf Dragonslayer and Ranger Commander. He used Dragonslayer Arrows to kill two ancient Red Dragons on the mountains, saving the lives of many of his people.

After the Kaeldomo Great Forest split, its largest forest area was named Tethyr Forest after him. The Elf King’s bravery earned the Elves the respect of the Dragons, who previously looked down on Elves, seeing them only as food and ignorant two-legged cattle.

In 17,500 Before the Era, the three independent forest Elf Kingdoms of Serthel, Eaerlann, and Seopia began discussing the establishment of a unified kingdom to resist the Gold Elf nation “Aryvandaar” to the north, who called themselves the Sun Elves, and the Dark Elf nation “Ilisrui,” who worshipped the Goddess Lolth.

Unfortunately, their unification plan this time was sabotaged by “Ilisrui.” The Dark Elves sent spies and assassins to kill the leaders of the three kingdoms who supported unification. They installed opposing heirs, pushing these three Elf Kingdoms into multilateral civil war. This conspiracy was only discovered by chance centuries later.

From 17,100 to 16,800 Before the Era, this three-century-long chaotic war was called the War of the Three Leaves. The peace-loving Green Elves and Moon Elves were, for the first time, thoroughly drawn into an Elf civil war, just like their Gold Elf and Dark Elf kin.

Compared to other war periods in the Elf era, the War of the Three Leaves, though lasting three centuries, was still more like child’s play. After all, the Green Elves and Moon Elves had peaceful temperaments and loved peace. The war between them did not cause great destruction, especially after they saw through the “Ilisrui” Dark Elves’ plot, and the war ended.

However, the reason the War of the Three Leaves was remembered by all Elves was that with its end, the first prosperous period of the Great Elven Civilization also ended.

Next, with the establishment of the Vyshaantar Empire by the Vyshaan clan of the “Aryvandaar” Gold Elves and the subsequent rise of the “Ilisrui” Dark Elves, the Elven Race entered its second prosperous period.

If the theme of the Elven Race’s first prosperous period was survival and reproduction, then during the second prosperous period, the Elven civilization truly began to flourish, with its themes being Art and Magic.

Located at the geographical center of the various Elf Kingdoms to the north and south, the “Maiyelita” Elf Kingdom gradually became the heart of Art and High Magic for all Elves in Faerûn, thanks to its advantageous location and trade exchanges.

At the same time, this made the self-proclaimed leaders of the Elves, the “Aryvandaar” Gold Elves, particularly unhappy. They had established the first Elven Empire—the Vyshaantar Empire—and called their forest the Supreme Forest, setting the stage for future wars with Maiyelita.

As conflicts over beliefs and regular trade between “Aryvandaar” and “Maiyelita” escalated, the second prosperous period of the Great Elven Civilization finally ended in the spring of 12,000 Before the Era, when the two nations erupted into a large-scale magic war.

However, at that time, no Elf could have anticipated that this war would only be the beginning of a series of wars that would ultimately cause the Elves to step down from the throne of ruling the continent.

These wars included: the “Maiyelita” invasion war launched by the “Aryvandaar” Gold Elves; the War of Giants and Dragons in Kaeldomo (the First Dragon War); Ilisrui’s invasion of Aryvandaar; the “Fire War” against Seopia; the Kaeldomo Allied Forces’ counterattack against Ilisrui in the “Mourning War”; Ilisrui’s annexation war against Eaerlann; and so on.

These wars, large and small, were chronologically classified as the Five Crown Wars. The two most impactful events during the Crown Wars were the Dark Disaster and the fall of the Dark Elves.

The Dark Disaster completely destroyed the Maiyelita Elf Kingdom, leaving only what is now called the High Moor—a scorched wasteland.

Perhaps due to the savagery of the Crown Wars, or perhaps due to their faith in the Goddess Lolth, the Dark Elves became corrupted during this era. After launching many wars and committing many atrocities, they were forced to migrate underground on this planet, becoming the Underground Elves, known as Drow Elves.

The Five Crown Wars lasted for four full generations of Elves, equivalent to over three thousand years—from 12,000 Before the Era until 9,000 Before the Era. Numerous wars burned vast areas of forest. The great forest that once covered the west of Faerûn was fractured into smaller forests. Compared to the previous forest, these smaller forests retained barely more than one-seventh of their original area.

In the last, or Fifth Crown War, with the complete defeat of the Vyshaantar Empire’s army and the split of Aryvandaar, the long period of total war finally ended. Many parts of the Supreme Forest were abandoned, left to grow freely, so that it might have a chance to recover.

Next began the Elven colonization movement, referred to as the Year of Wonders. The Gold Elves of Aryvandaar, weary of war, began moving to the Cormanthor Great Forest in the east of the continent. However, due to the destruction of the Vyshaantar Empire’s upper echelons, the Gold Elves’ legacy suffered significant damage.

Although the surviving Gold Elves later claimed they were still the royal family of all Elves by immigrating to Evermeet and transplanting the first World Tree seed to the center of Evermeet, in reality, the only continental Elven civilizations that remained intact were Eaerlann and Kaeldomo.

The Elven tribes now existing in the eastern part of the Supreme Forest were survivors from Santa Osriel, Maiyelita, Olyshall, and Eaerlann, and they were basically no longer related to the Vyshaantar Empire of the Gold Elves.

From then on, the Gold Elves, originally the upper nobility of the Elves, could no longer exclusively claim the Elven Kingship on moral grounds. Instead, the Moon Elves and Green Elves of Kaeldomo and Eaerlann, who possessed complete legacies, were more qualified to proclaim their legitimacy.

However, between 9,000 and 8,500 Before the Era, a group of Red Dragons attacked the heart of the Kaeldomo Great Forest. The flames they breathed started an uncontrollable forest fire. This fire wiped out the entire population of four Elf tribes, destroyed 11 Giant settlements, killed at least four Green Dragons, and burned thousands of miles of forest.

This disaster was called the Second Dragon War, to distinguish it from the War of Giants and Dragons during the Crown Wars period. Due to the fire’s division and other destructive reasons, Kaeldomo split into three forests: the Forest of Dragons, Darthol Forest, and Tethyr Forest (named after the Kaeldomo Elf King).

Then, in 6,200 Before the Era, the Tethyr Elves entered the Era of Skyfire. The nation “Kadom” established by Air Genies and the nation “Menon” established by Fire Genies began fighting in the Calimshan and Tethyr regions. The on-and-off wars lasted for a hundred years. Fires once again caused the Tethyr Forest to split into the four extant forests: Amn, Thorn, Winter, and Qiongda’er.

Since this war was not an Elf civil war, although the Kaeldomo Elves suffered heavy casualties, it did not affect their legacy. One branch of the Kaeldomo Elves, using other seeds of the World Tree, established the Elven Royal Court of the Magic Grail in Qiongda’er Forest, which is also the predecessor of the Qiongda’er Elves.

The disasters for the Elves, however, were good news for another continental race. The burned forests turned into plains, bringing fertile soil. Humans began to rise and gradually replaced the Elves as the new rulers of Faerûn.

The remaining Air Genies and Fire Genies were driven away by an alliance of Humans and Dwarves. Some Humans rebuilt Calimport and Kaelta in Calimshan, the original land of the Air Genies, and formed the “Cowansen” Human Kingdom (later called the Calinshen Kingdom). The Dwarves formed the Sannata Alliance in Tethyr, the original land of the Fire Genies, which later split into various Dwarf Kingdoms.

Another group of Humans established a kingdom called Zhamdas to the north of Qiongda’er Forest, which is the predecessor of the present “Qiongdus Kingdom.” They fought with the Cowansen Kingdom for control of the Steaming Lake region for several centuries.

Around the time of 255 Before the Era, due to dissatisfaction with the logging industry of “Zhamdas,” war broke out between the Qiongda’er Elves and Zhamdas. The Human army invading Qiongda’er Forest was swept away by a giant wave created by high Elven magic. The lands of Zhamdas north of the forest were scoured into part of the continent’s inland sea—the Sea of Fallen Stars—forming what is now the Vihong Sea.

From then on, the Zhamdas Kingdom and the Qiongda’er Elves became mortal enemies.

Although Zhamdas’ successor, the “Qiongdus Kingdom,” had weakened into a small country, and the Qiongda’er Elves were no longer what they used to be, and a surface-level peace was achieved, in reality, the relationship between the two had not eased at all.

This was the strange point Qin Lun pointed out regarding the caravan leader being an Elf! Given the mortal enemy relationship between the Qiongdus Kingdom and the Qiongda’er Elves, how could the Elves possibly take the initiative to leave the forest and trade with the people of Qiongdus?

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