History of Neressa

The recorded history of the Empire of Neressa itself is only slightly younger than that of Froturn and Dragoc - the land's pre-Imperial history is largely unrecorded, and thus one must rely on sketchy deductions based on archeology and the history of neighbouring areas, as well as hearsay.

An Unknown Civilization?
Neressa is home to many ruins - such as the (in)famous Towers of Illumination - that are of unknown origins. No one knows about what kind of civilization could have built these ruins, but one thing is certain: the end of their civilization was an abrupt one. No archeological records suggest any kind of battles, looting or destruction. The original builders must have fell victims to a plague or collectively. What makes matters even more interesting is that many of the ruins contain written records - clay tablets and stone steles with text written in the Despotanmagi language, with the Massenpreost Despotanfras cuneiforms.

It is clear, that if these ruins were once buildings erected by the Massenpreost Despotanfras race, they must have been isolated from their northern brethren who ended up being completely exterminated by the Lizardmen during the creation of the Ancient Lizardman Empire, which never interracted with the region of Neressa. No Lizardman writings ever mention anything about the Grey Mountains, which indicates that they must have considered the area to be not of their interest.

Whatever was the fate of this mysterious civilization, Neressa would never be home to a literate and engineering civilization again until the creation of the Empire of Neressa.

On the Eve of Invasion
Before the arrival of the Proto-Elves, Neressa was inhabited by a mixture of Aeséni hunter-gatherers and Goblin semi-nomadic goatherders. Both groups were illiterate and lacked a writing system altogether, population density was very low and neither of the two groups even had access to metal weapons, in spite of the presence of rich iron, copper and tin deposits in the Grey Mountains. All in all, the natives were in no position to offer any significant resistance to the onslaught of the Elves.

Elven colonization
Neressa was colonized by Elves in three waves.

The first wave - the true pioneers - were Proto-Elves from Clan Hycyati, also known as "Hikiyëti" in the Neressan language. Coincidentally, their dialect of the Proto-Elven language would evolve into Old Neressan.

The second wave came slightly later, around 1200 BEKE, and it was a mixture of Wood Elves and High Elves. speakers of Archaic Wood Elven and Archaic High Elven - both of these got assimilated by the descendants of the first wave, but not without leaving their marks on the language. The second wave High Elven migrants also introduced their writing system, which inspired the development of the Neressan alphabet.

The third wave - around 1000 BEKE - was mainly High Elves. Their contribution was mainly a biological one (cementing High Elven racial dominance in Neressa's demographics), rather than a cultural one: in spite of their high numbers, they were assimilated by the representatives of the earlier two waves.

Phoenix Empire
In 1125 BEKE, Fathred the Great led the First Kingdom of Etrand on a failed southern campaign being defeated miserably by the armies of the so called "Phoenix Emperor" from whom later Emperors of Neressa claim to descend. Skeptics assume him to be more myth and legend than reailty, as the first written mentions of a unified state in Neressa receiving foreign diplomats and sending out their own diplomats to foreign lands all come from after 1000 BEKE.

Both Dragoci and Froturnish history books speak of an isolated kingdom or "pocket empire" in the Grey Mountains, populated by "the purest desncendants of the Ancestral Elves". In Dragoc in particular, Neressa was known as "the fabled Southern Kingdom" and became the stuff of legends, imagined as a highly wealthy state to which Dragoc had to measure up by conquering Etrand and eventually Froturn too - hence the Great War. As the Great War turned against Dragoc, the legends of the flourishing Southern Kingdom degenerated into the dream of fools - which still didn't stop Lanhayr (one of the comrades of Thorm'Fa) from attempting to conquer Neressa with his ragtag army of renegades.

After the Great War, Neressa came into contact with the newly established Kingdom of the Orcs, with which relations were immediately hostile. The two quickly settled into a relationship of constant mutual raiding, neither being able to conquer the other. Perhaps it was the huge nuissance of the Orcs raids that prompted the Neressan Emperors to invite Human mercenaries to Neressa, whose descendants would form Clan Drmiah.

Isolationist Pocket-Empire
In 621 AEKE, there was a brief conflict between Neressa and Etrand, due to the Battle of Drúghahor.