If you wish to understand Kharndam as it is today, you must know its history. You also must acknowledge that Kharndam is but a name attached to the lands by history and hopes of its peace returning again. For far longer, the lands of which we speak were called the continent of Rokhal, the largest and earth-dominant continent of Dharual.
Now, youngling, the world-birth’s distance from us today makes knowledge of it seemingly pointless, but that is the short-sight of most mortals. Know that our lives are trees with roots stretching far from the present, nourished (or poisoned) by the humus of history acknowledged (or history lost, ignored, or misunderstood). What you understand of your history allows you to stand and grow to great height or shrivel and falter with hardly a leaf to mark your passing. Too, even the most well-meant actions can turn to rot by ignoring what nourishes one’s family (or racial) tree.
—Petram of Sarval, Day 151 in 1670 Overdrake of the Drakereckoning calendar
First Age—Age of Birthing
The Age of Birthing was the world’s First Age, and the Creation Times lasted approximately 8,000 years.
Circa -24,000- -16,000 OD (8,000 years)
The world formed from the elements, a world of fire and water, air and earth. Many islands and lesser attendants pushed up above the waves along with the four continents that were Rokhal and Shael and Orpak and Lammok.
First before all other living things were the Erl, the trinary plant entities who birthed the Flora and were creator, mother, and father to all plant life. Then came the Primal, the trinary mother-father-creator of Fauna, who populated the lands with all animalian creatures, predator and prey, warm- and cool-blooded, biggest to smallest. Among Erl and Primal, plant and animal life propagated and flourished among all elements on Dharual.
Next came the Progenitors—the Four Races of Reason: the Dragons, the Giants, the Goblins, and the Shay. All other sapient races on the world today descend from these four in some degree. In secret, the Shay allied with Primal and Erl to help protect all life and environments, while the others worked to exploit flora and fauna as resources and fuels for their needs. To dragons, giants, and goblins, the world was to be tamed for safety, and there was peace and creation for a time as all the races found their equilibrium and place in the world. But the Dragons knew greed and they sought to conquer all rather than share any.
Second Age—Age of War
The Second Age lasted five millenaries and was the Age of War when Dragons fought to (and briefly did) dominate all life on Dharual through the Spawning Conflicts.
Circa -16,000- -11,000 OD (5,000 years)
Dragons took mates by force, crafting new servitor races through abduction, experimentation, and other malign methods. They bred with Erl and Primal, spawning carnivorous plants and monstrous behemoths to keep the natural world beneath their claws. From captured Shay they birthed many Fiends that enforced their will over the Giants. They forcibly bred with Giants to create the original Ogres that dominated the Goblins. Willingly or no, Goblins mated with Dragons to unleash the Reptlar races across the world to ensure they had a place among the powerful (and races over which they could certainly rule).
In response, the Shay and the Giants in turn created Humans and Dwarves to challenge the fecund spread of Goblins and Reptlars. They bred with Erl to spawn the Fey races of such variety less than half were ever recognized by history. They too with Primal to birth the “Primal-Amalgams” or Prigams, as the name has survived for the animal-humanoid fusions of all elements and forms. All these races allied as the Armies of Light to fight the onslaught of the Dragon overlords. Dwarves built Dhiirm and Shaalth, their great homelands of on the continent of Lammok, and in them they crafted their weapons with great secrecy and precision.
Rokhal became the primary Battlelands in this war, and some dwarfish and giantish fortifications from these conflicts survive as ruins in the present day. By the end of the age and these conflicts, the Dragon and Fiend populations fell to near-extinction on Rokhal and Shael, though the Fiends survived in remote pockets on Orpak.
