Despite the existence of small groups of wandering Flan herders and hunter-gatherers for centuries beforehand, the area currently known as Sterich was first really explored about 2500 years ago by various bands of Dwur travelling to the Crystalmists and Jotens mountains to mine for gems and precious metals. Shortly thereafter, small groups of Noniz began settling the Stark Mounds, establishing small villages here and there in the rocky, somewhat barren hills where minimalist farms were set up and small herds of goats and sheep were tended. Though these demihumans banded together now and then for defense, and engaged in some minor trade, no real cohesive society existed until the coming of the Flan exodus, about 600 years later.
Next: The exodus from vecna's empire and the rise and fall of the Davi Kingdom.
The Flan people have inhabited the Shelomdar valley for ages, but a good portion of their history, Sterich was pretty much ignored. The fertile plains of central Keoland and Gran March were easier to farm, the woodlands of Geoff and Uleks rich with game and timber, leaving Sterich to those hardy few who chose to raise wandering herds of sheep or goats, or hunt the few large animals that roamed the highlands. Events in the Occluded Empire, an Ur-Flan nation that controlled much of what is now central Keoland and the gran March, changed that.
When the lich Vecna took control of the OE, his fued with the Old Faith druids, the traditional leaders of the Flan people, erupted into near civil war, with both sides fighting viciously to defeat the other. During this time, many commonfolk, as well as petty nobles, realized the defeat of the druids was coming and the end of their way of life in the OE was at hand. While later refugees who attempted to flee the empire were hunted down and enslaved or killed by Vecna's agents, during the fighting, many of those unhappy with the affairs in the OE fled, and a good number of them went into the rolling highlands of Sterich.
One such petty noble was Davi Agus, the lord of a minor holding near what is now the northeastern tip of the Good Hills. When word of the impending defeat of the druids in the area came to him, Agus gathered what possessions and provisions could be carried in his wagons and set out over the hills for the safety of the lands west of the great river (now called the Javan). Details of the trip are long forgotten, but sometime around 850FT (Flan Tally, the dating system devised by the Old Lore bardic colleges, approx -1100 CY) Agus settled in the long, shallow valley south across the river from what would one day be Istivin, accompanied by a large and diverse group of Flan refugees, native (to sterich) Flan herders, and a few small groups of Hobniz who fled the Good Hills with Agus' entourage. he settlers named their village Afonel (from the flan for "river home") and called the river "Davi's River", which was later bastardized into Davish River by Suel-Oerid settlers.
Over the next few decades, the influence of the settlers grew in the area, and in -997CY, Othan, a great-nephew of Davi Agus, was crowned as the leader of the Kingdom of Davi. With no major rivals in Sterich, the kingdom grew rather peacefully, driving out the scattered bands of humanoids that roamed the highlands, and incorporating the other Flan of the area.
Under the reign of king Krelont I, construction of the castle that now serves as the seat of power in Istivin was begun, though not finished until years after his death. Krelont was a wise a strong king, and during his reign the alliances with the Dwur of the surrounding mountains and the treaties with the giants (which basically stated "flan bring tribute to the giants, giants dont attack flan settlements") of those mountains were established. The city of Eagrad (Flan: Clear Water) was founded at the far southwestern reach of the kingdom, at the foot of the waterfall that marks the Davish river's entry into the highlands from the mountains, across the river from where the small fortress town of Crystal Falls sits now, and Krelont's cousin, Eldrin Dren, was named prince of the western reaches.
The next 4 or 5 hundred years went by rather peacefully for the Davi Flan. Old Faith customs mixed with bits of borrowed Dwur culture, and most of the highlands were tamed, with farmsteads and small villages dotting the lands around the two great cities.
In -638CY a great plague swept the nation, killing great numbers of Flan and Dwur alike, and decimating the entire population of Afonel. To control the sickness, as well as honor the dead, King Istiv II order the city burned to the ground, and construction of a new city, across the river at the foot of Castle Krelont, was begun. Though neither Istiv II or his heir lived to see the great wall that houses the city completed and the city truly develop, the king at the time of the completion of the wall, Hagron, named the city in honor of Istiv, calling it Istivin.
I like this Rich. It's especially helpful to me because I've been thinking about the prehistory of the region to make sense of the conflict between the EEG worshippers and the Malgoth, as I continue incorporating Greg Vaughn's campaign arc into my "Shadows on the March" campaign.
Basically I've been working off Istivin's mystical importance, as a place where the boundaries between Oerth and the Astral plane are weak, which made it a likely target for Lolth's Demonweb incursion.
I've been trying to incorporate Erik & Co.'s descriptions of the struggle between the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the Queen of Chaos and have imagined the Malgoth as one of the ancient demons who followed the Queen's call and conquered that part of Oerth now known as Sterich.
I'm unclear how the Malgoth relates to the EEG. I was thinking that the Malgoth might have originally been an aspect / avatar of the EEG that forgot its origin when within the Abyss and therefore struggles against Vaughn's EEG-worshipping drow in part because it doesn't agree with their attempts to bring it back into harmony (subsumptive oblivion) with the EEG.
However, lately that idea seems less appealing. I liked Paul Stormberg's myth that Beory petrified the EEG and smashed it into many pieces that revenged themselves upon her by tunneling deep under Oerth. (The Hellboy film provided good imagery for my musings about the EEG, as does my copy of the 3d edition of Chaosium's Call of Cthulu RPG.)
What do you think about the pre-2,500 years ago history of the region Rich, Samwise, or anyone else?
PS - Rich, I like your thoughts about Istivin's persistent appeal as a site for human habitation. IMC, I've made hill upon which Istivin's citadel, Krelont Keep, sits the site of an ancient dwur hold. I'm unsure if it was a duergar hold or the gift of mountain dwur (or noniz of the Stark Mounds?)
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