Long before men roamed the Realms, elves peered down—amused—from Fos, the city atop Dragon’s Nesting, high above the Storm of Ages.

Though ingenious in their crude ways, men were foolish to think themselves rulers of realms that bore life long before the first of them crawled out of the water like the tadpoles they were.

Yet our wise and benevolent Elven King saw in men a tenacity and shrewdness that no life to inhabit the Realms before had—men were much like elves. He sought to nurture and enlighten them, to show men where their loyalties should lie. So he sent his most trusted retainers as pilgrims of the Elven Way, and, in time, men thrived.

No longer did they die, maimed by insidious horrors or plagued by sickness. Nor did men dread the arcane; instead, they grew to fear elves and bore a deeper distrust of one another.

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Men’s fears would overcome this distrust—whispers, then hushes, of treasonous litanies echoed louder—and soon, men bared their fangs at our King. A bitter betrayal that lingers still in the hearts of all elves. Battles raged; sons and daughters of men and elves bled and died in scores—a slaughter that seemed to go on forever.

Until… repulsed and chagrined, men realised it mattered not how many battles they won, nor the clipped elven ears they wore on strings around their necks. This war was theirs to lose—for elves did not, in old age, grow feeble or forget why we held grudges and waged war.

And so, dreading the inevitable, men committed a great sacrilege and shed their humanity. Men became mad, long-living husks, plagued by a profound longing for what they had lost—one slaked only by salted elven ears boiled in our blood.

— FROM "A HISTORY OF THE REALMS" (AS TOLD TO ELVEN CHILDREN).