The Beginning and the First War
The Beginning - Little, if anything, is remembered about the time before the founding of the Kingdoms. The Fey were the only inhabitants of the land until the race that became known as the Ancients arrived with their protégés, humans, in tow. They were refugees from another land, sealed beyond a great, lost gate, unable to return. The Ancients wanted peace, and asked the fey if their wards could remain and live freely alongside them. They were hesitant at first, but after lengthy negotiations, the fey wrote and signed the Great Treaty. The humans were given land upon which to build and the rest was set aside for the fey, to remain as they wished. No brick would hold mortar on this land and no tree would allow itself to be cut. The humans and their guardians agreed to this arrangement and there was peace for countless generations.
The First War - After a time that would be long even for an Ancient, strangers suddenly appeared in the Kingdoms. A group of sorcerers, almost identical to the revered Ancients made their way to Kaderria and established their home there. While they may have been cousins to the Ancients, these strangers didn't share any of their ideals. Slowly and secretly, they warped the humans they lived with, infusing them with magic and shaping them into their own military force. They convinced the Kaderrians to disregard the Great Treaty and expand their land. The Kaderrians had inherited so much power from the sorcerers, been changed so profoundly, that they were almost no longer human. They crushed Greymoors and moved west to Broewende, and east to Kep, cutting off the elves in Rune from the humans in Findain and Azar.
Eventually the fey called on the Ancients (who by the treaties could not to meddle in the affairs of the mortal races) to intervene directly in the conflict and help them. Freed of their obligations to the treaties, they led their charges and their hosts into battle. Both the Ancients and the mortals suffered great casualties, and the Ancients' already low ranks dwindled even further, but the First War had ended at last. The land was devastated. The fey offered a Second Treaty, taking back some of the land they had given to the humans in exchange for their power to heal the scars of war. It was decided that the Kaderrians, bred and modified by the Strangers to wield the Song, were far too dangerous to let go. Killing them was unthinkable, since the change had affected even the children to some degree, but it was agreed something must be done. With sorrow, the few remaining Ancients tore the Song out of the blood of the Kaderrians, making certain they'd never be able to become the fearsome sorcerers that they had been.
The Strangers were not as fortunate as the Kaderrians they had ruled. The First War's end saw them dead to the last. After the reconstruction had begun, the Ancients encouraged the founding of the three major Academies in Rune, Kep and Azar and started to teach the humans (and some say even certain fey) a way of understanding the Song. It was strange, technical, long to learn and impossible to completely master, but in this way the Rule was born. For the first time, humans had a small measure of the power of the Ancients and the fey, and the freedom of will to use it.
