I've been doing some research on the Outcasts, and while I've discovered quite a bit, I can't seem to find much information about what originally caused the Outcasts to be casted out (heh).

There are of course the three artifacts from that era. The first seems to show the Outcasts being forcibly marched out (along with the inscription "Yol Malcisen... Uskela'jama..." which translates roughly to road of sorrows). The second seems to indicate a battle was fought (or at least some sort of blood sport), and then the last which shows Elves being surrounded while a village burns in the background.

Tiso's book, while quite informative of current Outcast culture, is equally uninformative on the Outcasts' past.

Basically, I'm wondering if the Outcasts were necessarily forcibly kicked out of Shard, or if they were somehow cheated out of their land, or if the Outcasts put up much resistance prior to being removed.

Obviously, it can be assumed from the above sources that the Outcasts were the original inhabitants of what is today known as Shard, however were kicked out (after a battle, presumably). However, I'm currently writing a book on related subjects and want to make sure I get the facts completely straight.

Any input is welcome, as long as it's constructive. Thanks!



All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost.

He doesn't mean at the end of the recent war. He is talking about when they -originally- left the Shard area.

>I've been doing some research on the Outcasts, and while I've discovered quite a bit, I can't seem to find much information about what originally caused the Outcasts to be casted out (heh).

I searched for the reason awhile ago but could only find two vague references that made it look like they just wanted the land that the natives had.

http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Shard_Histories_(book)
>>Still others whisper that Corik was romantically involved with Lady Morganae of the Mountains, and that he had convinced her that his people needed lands.

Whatever the reason, the ink was not long drying upon the parchment of the treaty when Corik and Morganae announced that they would build a city that would be the capital of the Elothean nation, and a home to Elves. Termed the "Leth Deriel that Never Was", it was built with much of the same architecture in mind, but with crystal walls that would hold against the greatest siege, and streets named after the jewels that Morganae's people sang to shape the foundations. To the northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest of the walls were placed towers -- or Keeps -- and these were deemed as places of learning. At the center was one great, silver tower, and this was deemed the palace of the Ferdahl and his or her advisors.

http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/Raenilar
>>A single thread draws your attention, the faint blue glow growing in intensity until it blocks the rest from sight. Watching closely, the line expands and twists until before you appears a moving river of people, their heads hung low in defeat and loss as they plod northward, their every step guarded by armed warriors who stand unmoved and emotionless as one by one the sick and dying collapse to the ground in exhaustion and death.

>Keep in mind that much of Elanthian history is intentionally vague to allow player and GM alike to use the information with whichever bias they desire.

Unfortunately in this case, the Outcast history isn't merely vague, it actively makes no sense.

It's based on the premise that a mass, forced migration of a large clan not only went unrecorded in history, but somehow resulted from the building of Shard, a prosperous symbol of unity between the Elven and Elothean people.

The only possible thing I can come up with is that the people who became the Outcasts were driven from their homes by the Dragon Priests and blamed Corik for losing to them.

>> I wouldn't say it went unrecorded. It is, without a doubt, one of the largest stains on the history of the region. Perhaps part of the reason it isn't written down is that those of Shard kind of want it kept under the rug. They wouldn't be the first society to hide their shady past.

I think the issue people has is that it kind of is unrecorded, and presuming that they did indeed walk the whole way, Shard and Ilithi aren't the only cultures that would have been exposed to those events.

Of course, it's entirely possible they got a lift with Moongates, thereby bypassing the entire issue. Who knows.

---

Rev. Reene

Uthgaar asks, "She has a scalpel and a creamy nutlog in her hands and no one is running?"

History is forgotten and/or hushed up all the time. It's harder to do in a modern society than it once was, but still quite possible. I highly doubt you're going to see the Tower talk about what happened and the ol' Ice Queen probably won't either.

Would it help if I confirmed that they did in fact go on foot? It wasn't an overnight journey.

I'm not saying that the information has been disbursed very well in the past - it hasn't - but it has been out there, it's just not in a book. I realize that books are the primary source of information in the game and I desperately want more of them out there, but just because it isn't in a book, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Unfortunately, from what I can gather, all this information was (or was supposed to be) stated during the outcast war and the events that lead up to/followed it. What was or wasn't, I'm honestly not sure.


~GM Aurdun
Barbarians' Guild Advocate
Gor'Tog Co-Champion
History Guru

[Aurdun] Why won't they just accept things I tell them point blank?
[Zeyurn] Obviously that would be cheating.

We are so fighting.


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So we get to blame the entire Outcast war on the Bards?

I'm game.

>All this history mis-information is really the fault of the Bards.

Yeah, they drink too much and get their songs mixed up.

<<So we get to blame the entire Outcast war on the Bards?

Wait, isn't every conflict in DragonRealms the linked to the bards?

Anyway, I think it is clear that this small rag tag band of isolationist elves were remnants of Teiro's followers that had stopped fighting after his beheading and the end of the war but refused to give up their loyalty to the cause all the same.

Shamed by their loss, shunned for their continued loyalty, and isolated by the ever politically savvy and self-securing Mountain Queen, it was an easy thing to discard them as the festering wound they represented at the earliest opportunity and then allow time and carefully appointed and placed scholars and archivists to remove them entirely from almost all memory.

Given that he's basically invincible, it's a pretty good bet that Raenilar the You-can-count-on-it-like -the-sunrise-and-sunset Inevitable Victor is a direct descendant of the equally unmatched Teiro himself, further explaining his inexplicable awesomeness in all things.

Heh.

It was all a bunch of inconsistent retconned BS.

<<Nice post Cemm. Sounds like the best explanation I've seen so far.

Yeah, I was just kidding around when I started typing it out and then when I was done I sat back and was left wondering how vaguely plausible it actually might be.

The part about Raenilar being a descendant of Teiro and that being an explanation for why he was basically invincible was really just a playful jab at the uber-GMPC thing that spurred a lot of complaints back then.

But playing along with that 'it's all in the bloodlines' lineage theory, I'm not sure how much that would necessarily matter anyway in transferring the awesome that were Teiro's soldiers (which, as I recall, were supposed to be pretty excellent soldiers) through the ages to the awesome that were/are the Outcasts (we're talking about a single army, removed basically the entire continent's worth of distance from its desert homeland, that was able to pretty much throttle the combined military might of Therengia, Zoluren, the Mountain Elves, and the remnants of the Ilithi resistance and eventually basically just pick up and leave on its own terms when Raenilar decided he missed the desert).

Hell, I might have even been able to embrace the idea of the Outcasts if something like this had been the story as we were able to unravel it that had been presented all this time.

Mostly I've pretty much always felt like the whole Outcast thing was a pretty messy, inconsistent, and above all heavily jarring retcon to what we'd always known about DragonRealms. Maybe some effort to actually tie it to known history instead of just completely disregarding everything we'd ever been told and slamming a retcon into place would have helped a bit.

I would wholly support an heavily jarring retcon that deletes the Outcasts and brings Kukalakai back to life. I don't think anyone would really mind.


-Golgol

A lot of things are added to the history of the game without existing prior. See also: Philosophers of the Knife/most of the new Necromancer guild lore.

---

Rev. Reene

(1:45:46 AM) Mordiazi: The learned members of Elanthian society want to kick you in the nuts.

Heh, so went looking at the timeline to see how plausible the kidding around actually was.

Oops, it isn't: Construction of Shard (the original) began in 237 BL and was completed five years later in 232 BL. The Resistance War didn't end and Teiro didn't die until the next year in 231 BL.

But it is another look at how badly handled a retcon the whole Outcast mess actually was. Even after the racial ages were changed drastically years ago, the average Elven lifespan is 400-500 years (LOL, and the tweaking continues as another place on the official website says 350-450 years....whaaatever).

The Outcasts marched on Shard in 375 AV. That's 612 years after the beginning of the construction of Shard in 237 BL. If there are hundreds of thousands of Elves in Ilithi, then we're talking about a fourth or even a third of that current population that has overlapped with the the generation (grandchildren in the early stages of their lifespan to grandparents in the latter stages of their lifespan) that actually witnessed the... uh... Outcasting.

In other words, it has not been nearly enough time to remove a "Trail of Tears" level tragic event from basically all memory regardless of any significant efforts to do so (short of a genocidal purge of the thousands upon thousands of Elves and Elotheans that would have been there in Ilithi to witness it and discuss it later in their lives).

To put it another way, the chances of that level of conspiracy required for making a displaced people just completely disappear from history for 600+ years is about the same chance that a massive conspiracy involving thousands of opinionated Americans involved in the 1960's space program managed to not have a single leak of the truth that the lunar landings never actually happened and that it all went down on a sound stage in Area 51. Uhh...right.

Anyway, I can only conclude that there has been a serious glitch in the Matrix and it is time for the Machines to come in and wipe out Zion and start the whole 500 year process over with a new 'the One'.

Timeline bits taken from Elanthipedia.com:

241 BL --Corik the Black Cloud becomes the Ferdahl
237 BL --Construction begins on the city of Shard
232 BL --Shard is completed
231 BL --The Battle of the Spine takes place. Teiro dies, ending the Resistance War
230 BL --The Imperial land is divided into five sovereign states (Zoluren, Therengia, Ilithi, Qi, and Forfedhdar). --Construction begins on the Crossing.
198 BL --Ferdahl Corik attempts to purge the Dragon Priests from Ilithi, but they outmaneuver his army --Shard falls to the Dragon Priests and is razed
375 AV -- (day 291) Outcasts march on Shard
380 AV -- Festival held in Shard celebrating end of Outcast reign

>Yeah, I was just kidding around when I started typing it out and then when I was done I sat back and was left wondering how vaguely plausible it actually might be.

It isn't.

-252 Tiero Strikes at the capital of the 7-Star Empire (End of Seven-Starred Empire, start of War of Resistance)
-239 Reign of Ferdahl Corik of the Black Cloud begins
-238 Corik allies with Morganae to begin construction of Shard
-236 Teiro is beheaded
-230 Corik and Morganae complete the city of Shard

Points of interest: Corik was neutral in the War of Resistance. He wanted to fight, but didn't. He was busy building a city shortly after coming to power.

I'm aware that some of this was "explained" during the Outcast War, but it feels like somebody was making it up right there on the spot and did a poor job of it. And even THAT info is still hard (impossible?) to find anywhere outside of player's logs.

I just find it extremely suspect that Corik and Morganae managed to uproot and drive out a tribe of Elves without anyone noticing. I realize this would have taken place under the "cover" of the War further north, but you would think it would at least get mentioned by all those Bards keeping records of the upheaval.

Plus, not only does this imply that the guy who stayed OUT of a war turned around and started busting up the locals, but that he did so with Morganae's consent, if not her help. And furthermore for the sake of building a city for both races.

--insert puzzled face here--

Heh, Ninja'd.

Yeah I took my time writing my post.

And yes, there are two conflicting timelines. The differences are minimal where it concerns the Outcasts though.

For what it's worth, the consistancy of Elanthian history is an issue. I spent 107 hours working on the timeline before Simucon and it needs more work still (THANKS YSSELT. Silly Bards...). A number of things that are on the previously released timelines have been changed or removed, depending on what needed doing. With regards to the outcasts, I don't believe anything changed, however. My hands are pretty well tied with regards to the events of the war and the previous information about the outcasts. I don't like to say it, but that's just the way it is. I agree that 2 generations isn't very long to forget and wipe clean, but it also isn't impossible. The Soviet Union was particularly good at this kind of thing.

Realistically, you're just going to just have to suspend your disbelief or deal with it. I think we're all in agreement that it could be better, but I can't change the history of things that were done in game. I'll do what I can to make things make sense as things move on, though.


~GM Aurdun
Barbarians' Guild Advocate
Gor'Tog Co-Champion
History Guru

[Aurdun] Why won't they just accept things I tell them point blank?
[Zeyurn] Obviously that would be cheating.

>> The Soviet Union was particularly good at this kind of thing.

Or China, or North Korea...

---

Rev. Reene

(1:45:46 AM) Mordiazi: The learned members of Elanthian society want to kick you in the nuts.

<<This is for actual Elanthian history, not what you would like it to have been. That is likely better for the Fiction folder.

We're discussing the actual Elanthian history as this point too.

The issue is that our grasp of Elanthian history is limited by, among other factors, how much of it has actually been shared with us in a clear way (the official timelines, etc.), a less than crystal clear way (biased ingame history books, etc.), and sorting out whether any of the previous was even paid attention to as new information was added.

So when you say 'what you would like it to have been', I say that I'd think it was great if it all fit together in a consistent way (much of Elanthian history, in my opinion) that didn't require a huge leap of faith and suspension of disbelief to swallow (the jarring introduction of the Outcast history).

All of the above said, I am aware that players and staff alike have long ago accepted that the Outcast mess was...well, pretty much a huge mess. A number of players and staff members alike ended up leaving the game over it and so it is not something that is very fun to dwell on at this point. I'm not trying to re-open and pour salt in old wounds by discussing it.

The issue is that they (the Outcasts) weren't retconned right out again. They've remained, and are played by NPCs and PCs ingame. I'm not saying they should have been at all, but their story continues to not make sense to anyone that goes back and tries to piece the historical puzzle together right?

Is it possible that a new storyline could come out and fix this maybe? Would it be worth the effort?