The Founding of Adaria

Adaria is a comparatively young realm, its history spanning some four centuries. According to the chronicles, one of its founders, the valiant Alber Mornfell, made landfall on the shores of Kitnis and led his companions deep into lands peopled by goblin tribes and steppe orcs. Although open conflict was rare in those days — free land being plentiful — trust between the races was nowhere to be found. Even so, possessing the greatest battle experience and the most distinguished record in the war against the nomads, he became the only worthy claimant to the throne — not by right of blood, but by right of merit.

— The Green Migration —

Adaria's first city was Windafall, raised upon the coast thanks to its favorable position by the sea. Yet from the very beginning discord smoldered within the kingdom between humans, elves, and dwarves. Though the Mornfells' expedition ships had led the settlers, for long centuries humans, dwarves, and elves had been blood enemies, fighting over territory and its scarce resources for the sake of their own survival. No one ever forgot the old grievances, but it was the search for new lands that gave rise to this short-lived alliance. The shared home never truly became one: the elves soon resettled nearer the forests, and the dwarves nearer the mountain ranges. Thus arose the villages of Bramblefield and Moonstone, which formally remained within Adaria yet always kept their own traditions and way of life. The event was named the Green Migration, described in detail in the works of Buprofen the Bearded, which tell of the taming of the deep forests, crags, and steppes of Adaria's bountiful lands.

— A Neighborly Chill —

To the south, the nomads of Baghua Sin, as well as the dwarves of the Ancestors' Reach, met the new kingdom with wariness. At first they sought no open confrontation, yet felt no warmth toward the newcomers either. Before long, the disunited sultans and the dwarven powers resolved to wage war against the uninvited guests who had wrested a choice morsel from the nomadic tribes — with whom they had held a trade alliance, flimsy though it was. The lands of present-day Adaria were reckoned incredibly fertile, able to feed nearly every inhabitant of Kitnis. Though the sultanate's geography could not bring its desert host to Adaria's borders, the dwarves of the Ancestors' Reach struck suddenly from behind their mountain ranges, waging bloody slaughter against King Alber's armies and sprinkling Kitnis with fresh blood — their own and that of the so-called strangers alike. This was the first time since the Green Migration that dwarves, by personal conviction, stood at Mornfell's side, forming the greater part of his army in that war. The mournful period known in Adaria as the Tear of Moradin lasted a full decade, a loud reminder of how dwarves slew their own kin who fought under the banner of another state.

— The Flame Pact —

Different was the stern but pious Theocracy of Borealis: it supported the young kingdom, for among the first Adarian settlers the veneration of Lathander — one of the most revered gods — had quickly spread. The birth of Adaria also coincided with the rise of a dubious society known as the Firewing. Its followers preached the boundless use of magic and spoke of strange, "artificial" beings — metal, humanlike constructs. Their views seemed mad and even dangerous, yet it was in this very period that they gained considerable influence. Only thanks to Archbishop Riverius and the sudden intervention of the minds of the Firewing — the former appealing to the voice of the gods, the latter to the voice of reason — was it possible to bring all five known states to the negotiating table, along with two city-states: the Firewing-controlled mining commonwealth of Fovas and the ancient elven host known as the Children of Mielikki. The Flame Pact was signed, clearly defining the territories of the states and binding them to share scarce resources with one another in times of dire need — such as mithral, the antimagic metal; King's Sage, the finest of medicinal ingredients; and the like.

— The One Who Would Be Called a Tyrant —

The kingdom's growth was measured not in centuries but in years. Sadly, Alber I lived a short life, passing from an unknown illness, and his son, Alber II, moved the capital to what is now Addoran, unable to dwell in the same castle where his beloved father had died. Today that castle is home to House Alloy, whose ancestors were loyal companions of the first king and earned their well-deserved, inviolable nobility. No one even suspected how the good-natured Alber II would truly reveal himself once he ascended the throne — what indescribable prosperity he would bring to some, and how many tears others would shed because of him.