Chapter 1
The history here was recorded more than a thousand years ago and the information is only available to those who seek it at the library in the Mists…
In the beginning the sidhe were not the only ones who reigned on the high thrones of Alanor. In the beginning there were five: five courts, five monarchs and five kingdoms that rippled with magic. Of course there were the Seelie and the Unseelie, the courts populated by the sidhe, the nimbus and the tainted fae known as garlangers. Though these courts existed as they do today, with god-like monarchs and powerful warriors, they were not any more prestigious than the other three courts they coexisted with. The kingdoms of the Pixies, the Sluagh and the Goblins were all majestic in their own rights.
The kingdom of the pixies was the weakest of the five kingdoms. Though the nation that housed the yumboes, the brownies, and the demi-fey was known for its beauty and elegance, the pixies were last when it came to physical prowess. The Goblin nation, ruled by King Kruag, exploited this lack of physical strength, using the pixies for whatever he liked. The goblins viewed the pixies as the natural servants of Alanor, regarding them as slaves and objects of lust as opposed to creatures of equal worth. And the goblins were not alone in their ideaology. The exact sentiment was echoed by the remaining three courts, but they were not aggressive in the way that the Goblins were.
There was little the pixie queen, Maev, could do to avoid her kingdom being taken over by the goblins but appeal to the monarch she knew had the most strife with the goblin king: the Seelie Lord, King Taranis. The pixie pleaded with Taranis to help her, but Taranis saw no value in helping them as coming to blows with the goblins would only hurt his kingdom and an alliance with the pixies would not benefit his court in any way. Knowing that war with the goblins was imminent Queen Maev used what little skills in manipulation she had. Having heard rumors of the Seelie king being incredibly pompous and self-absorbed, she pledged the allegiance of her people and her crown to him, claiming she had always operated under the assumption that she was merely a local leader allowed to rule the pixies by Taranis. Taranis bought the ruse, and when the goblins came to collect their pixie slaves they found an army of sidhe waiting for them.
Taranis proclaimed that any attack on the pixies would be viewed as an attack on the Seelie Court, but Kruag didn’t believe the threat. He sent his men into pixie territory to harvest them as slaves, and thus the Goblin War was sparked.
At first the war was simply a clash between two immortal nations. The goblins used the might of their gigantic Red Cap warriors to combat the sidhe’s magic, the war claiming equal numbers on both sides and doing extensive damage to both courts. Still, no end was in sight. Both courts were ruled by headstrong monarchs who would not cease until the conflict was won, but Kruag was less headstrong than Taranis; he realized he’d need allies if he wished to destroy the Seelie Court.
Kruag sought the aid of the Sluagh King, Lugh. The master of the Sluagh commanded a powerful race, a group of terrifying creatures of nightmare that hunted oath-breakers and kidnapped the treacherous from their beds as they slept. Sluagh magic was rumored to be as powerful as sidhe magic and Kruag promised many spoils to Lugh if he would help. Lugh agreed and his army joined the ranks of the Goblins; their presence was felt immediately.
The Seelie, realizing they would be beaten by the combined might of the Sluagh and the Goblins, made a desperate attempt to salvage the war. They sought an alliance with the Unseelie Queen Andais, the Darkling warrior who had earned a Goblin Blade from the goblins themselves. At first, Andais scoffed at the idea of an alliance with the Seelie. She despised King Taranis, was in good standing with Lugh, and had earned the respect of Kruag’s people long ago. Yet the Seelie messengers explained to Andais that if the Seelie was to be beaten, it would expose a vulnerability of the faerie and that her court could come under potential fire from the Sluagh and the Goblins if they deemed it necessary to take over all of Alanor. Realizing that the Seelie messengers had a valid point she called for an audience with the leaders of the Sluagh and the Goblins.
Andais asked for a cease fire from the monarchs, suggesting that she would mediate a peace treaty between the two nations and the Seelie. When the Goblins and the Sluagh refused, Andais demanded a cease fire. Once more they refused and a third time Andais threatened that she would end the war if they did not. They refused yet again and Andais made an official proclamation not even an hour later; the Unseelie would go to war against the Goblins and the Sluagh.
The Unseelie rejuvenated the Seelie’s ranks, bolstering their magic. The Unseelie waged war in the Sluagh kingdom, destroying the portion of the caverns that they called home and imprisoning Lugh in Andais’s infamous torture chamber, the Hall of Mortality. With Lugh imprisoned it was very easy for the Queen to dispatch the Sluagh, cutting them off from supplies in their own kingdom and driving them into neutral territory. The Sluagh, realizing they had nothing to gain by continuing to fight now that their home was destroyed, surrendered, leaving the Goblins at the mercy of the two courts.
Andais privately met with Lugh in the bowels of her dungeons in efforts to arrange a treaty. The terms of the treaty were that the Sluagh would be allowed to remain in Alanor as long as they remained in the Underdark and followed the laws of the Unseelie. To cement the treaty Andais and Lugh conceived a child who would eventually rule the Underdark, the only garlanger to ever hold the title “King” in Alanor.
With the Sluagh no longer doing battle, the Unseelie and the Seelie fae continued to war with the Goblins. The Goblins scored many major victories against the fae, with the most significant victory resulting in the true, mortal death of King Taranis. Without a king to lead the Seelie, Andais took control and made one unified push into Goblin territory. Kruag was slain by the hand of Andais in retribution for slaying the Seelie king and the faerie claimed victory. Andais did not remain in the Goblin lands for long nor did she offer them any type of treaty similar to the one she offered the Sluagh. Instead, she left the Goblins to mercy of the Seelie, a decision that would shape Alanor for years to come…
The rest of the book is charred and burnt. 
