Location: Fantasy Worlds » Forgotten Realms Lore
History
of the
North - The Spread of Humankind
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The
adaptable humans made use of magic they could seize or learn from the
Proud Peoples to defeat all enemies, breaking (for a time) the power of
giants and orcs. Waterdeep was founded. The last of the pure blood elves
died out, a result of continued marriages with humans. In the far west,
men also dwelled - wise, clever primitives called the Ice Hunters. They
lived simple lives on the coast since time beyond reckoning, countless
generations before Netheril's first founders set foot on the Narrow Sea's
western shore.
Yet this peaceful folk fell prey to another invasion from the south: crude
longships that carried a tall, fair-haired, warlike race who displaced
the Ice Hunters from their ancestral lands. This race, known as the Northmen,
spread farms and villages along the coast from the banks of the Winding
Water to the gorges of the Mirar. Northmen warriors drove the simple Ice
Hunters farther and farther north, forced the goblinkin back into their
mountain haunts, and instigated the last Council of Illefarn.
Within 500 years of the Northmen's arrival, Illefarn was no more - its
residents had migrated to Evermeet. From the Coast, Northmen sailed westward,
claiming and establishing colonies on the major western islands of Ruathym
and Gundarlun, eventually spreading to all the islands in the northern
sea. Others migrated northward, past the Spine of the World, and became
the truly savage barbarians of Icewind Dale.
In the centuries that followed, Ascalhom became Hellgate Keep when it
fell into the hands of fiends, and Eaerlann collapsed under the attack
of a new orc horde. The elves fled southeast, joining with Northmen, Netherese
descendants, and dwarves to form what would later be known as the Fallen
Kingdom. This realm was short-lived and collapsed under the next orcish
invasion - though in dying, it dealt the goblin races a blow from which
they have yet to recover.
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