The world of Nordock

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The world of Nordock today is divided into two continents, one of which is still unexplored, as well as two large polar caps (north and south of the planet).

Legends say that Nordock’s first sentient beings were the elves, a very proud and haughty race, whose members enjoy an endless life, thanks above all to the beneficial effects of the fruits of the World Tree (which was the first plant ever grown on the planet and on which the ancestral elves’ druids cast spells of grace and protection which still last today). So, around it they built their splendid capital, Eshal Aiqua, and there they concentrated a large part of their people.

The elves, however, soon got tired of having to do manual work (preferring art, philosophy and medicine to them) and so they created a new race. Thus came into the world the dwarves, who had been “designed” to be strong, resilient, but not intelligent enough to pose a threat to their creators (as well as masters).

The elves thus began a long period of leisure and fun, focusing only on the pleasures and the most beautiful things life offered, reducing the dwarfs to a life of service and slavery. But nature, you know, is mocking and one day a dwarf named Ghǎl Borhät found a fruit of the World Tree on the ground, forgotten by a distracted elf, still good to eat and tasted it: from that moment his intelligence was increased 100 times and he understood the cruel state in which he and his race were forced to live.

Ghǎl Borhät hid the rest of the fruit and, that same evening, he also made his closest friends taste it, who too became aware of their situation. That night, those “awakened” dwarves confabulated for a long time until the new day arose.

That morning, going as every day to bring breakfast to the refectory of the King of elves, Idril Celebrindal, Ghǎl Borhät and their companions clamored to be treated better and, after an initial surprise on the part of the King, at his clear refusal to grant any conditions to a race defined as "ugly, squat, stupid and barbaric", the dwarfs launched a signal and many of their comrades poured into the refectory slaughtering whatever elf they could find. At the end of the slaughter, they fled to the nearby Argobath Mountains, now known as “Mountain of Giants”.

That event marked a millennial war between the two races that shook the whole north, eventually leading both the elves and the dwarves to entrench themselves in their respective capitals, looking at all foreigners with suspicion and killing on the spot any transgressor of their respective lands.

During the long war, unspeakable atrocities were committed and forbidden spells were created and casted which gave rise to the so-called “damned races”: orcs, goblins, undeads and several others lost in history.

While the battle raged in the north, another race appeared in the south, much less long-lived but stronger than that of the elves and with an intelligence slightly inferior to them: the humans. They soon prospered and progressed, spreading across the entire continent, except for the 3 great forbidden zones: the elven and dwarven territories and the Ancient Desert.

From the union (voluntary or forced) with other races (even with the damned ones and, in some cases, with animals) a set of other subraces came to life.

Today the world of Nordock is in a precarious balance, but how long will the peace last?