The land of Tarmilain was created long ago by the gods as a haven and new home for the survivors of an ancient disaster. Under the watchful eye of the Gods, the multifarious races inhabiting the land have grown and prospered in peace and harmony. This peace, however, was broken less than five hundred years ago by the arrival of the High Elves from the Great Sea to the west. With them they brought great and powerful magic and great skill and knowledge of many crafts, but with them they also brought a lust for power. The peace of the lands began to weaken when some of the High Elves became sympathetic for the Humans and tried to aid them by giving them the secrets of their magic and crafts. However, many of the humans they granted the power to, the Samanari in the elftongue, or "Celestials" in the common speech, became obsessed with their newfound power. Unlike the few which used it for the purpose the elves intended, that of aiding the human race, and other races, these men used it to gain power for themselves. They used the Celestial magic to manipulate the men around them and soon rose to power, establishing Cians, or territories, for themselves. They soon became known and feared by all common men.
The High Elves, who had withheld their knowledge from humankind for this very reason, punished those who gave it to the Samanari by casting them out from the ranks of the High Elves. Many of these elves became the Fallen and went into hiding, aiding the humans under the oppression of the Samanari. They found and united those Samanari who had remained uncorrupted, forming a resistance movement. However, some of the outcasts mixed and bred with humans, soon becoming part of certain groups of human society. These human clans were forsaken by all other humans, and moved away to an uninhabited area of land. These became the fabled Half-Elf clans. Occasionally, a Half-Elven child will show remarkable magical proficiency, and will be brought up in the ways of Celestial magic.
The High Elves tried to control the damage some of their kind had done, attacking the Cians of the corrupt Samanari, now called the Samaracht. They responded by counter-attacking the High Elves, and soon a terrible war ensued. The Smamracht, in an attempt to gain access to metal supplies in order to forge weapons and armour for their troops, attacked the mines of the Dwarves in the central mountain range of Tarmilain. This caused the Dwarves to go to war with the Humans as well. Meanwhile, the Serengi, a forest-dwelling race occupying the northern lands of the continent, attacked the High Elves, blaming them for the mindless destruction of the forest by the warring armies. The terrible war took millions of lives and threatened to destroy the entire land.
Luckily for all the races, Saranephan the Peacekeeper, the benevolent god who had first created the land as a safe haven, took pity on the victims of the war, and created yet another continent for refugees to flee to. He created a single great vessel to take them there, and sent his priests and prophets throughout the land to gather refugees and aid them in their journey to the port where the ship was docked. As the ship was about to set off, however, Durankar the Destroyer sent his followers to stop it, insisting that "Mortalkind must face the future they have created for themselves." He commanded his followers to attack the boat and slaughter all aboard, but Saranephan sacrificed himself to save them, blasting Durankar with the strength of his essence and slaying him, causing his followers to flee in terror. As his last act, the Peacekeeper appointed a prophet, Armoth, to lead the refugees to the safety of the new land.
The death of Durankar, however, threw out the fragile balance of power between the gods. They began to battle for power, land and strength, blasting the land with powerful magic. These terrible God Wars scathed the land, destroying parts of it entirely. At one point, competition for land in the mountains at the center of the land cause out mountain to be blasted with raw magic and life energy. Within the center of the mountain, a large cluster of rocks received the main force of this blast, and suddenly began to live. They were named trolls by the humans of Tarmilain, after the mountain's name of Mt Troladar.
The God Wars lasted for many years, and, when the balance of power was finally restored, the lands lay in ruin. Terrible creatures roamed the land, entering it through the breaks in reality caused by the massive amounts of magic that had bombarded the land. Much of this magic had remained embedded in the land, allowing several new forms of magic to be created. The only survivors of the war were scattered, living in tiny villages and hamlets or wandering the land without aim. Bandits and other brigands attack all those who dare to venture from the safety of numbers.