Author’s Note: More than once have I written upon this page that I take delight in devising meanings for the names of my characters and for the realms I have wrought. The brief chronicle that follows was first intended merely to explain the origins of the names Arlon and Erdan, yet I chose to let it also tell of the dawn of the two great kingdoms.
For many long centuries, in the northern reaches of the continent of Noritvy, there stood the House of Krak, ruled by Wutan Krak — an elf stout of frame by elven measure, his hair white as fallen snow. Wutan had three sons: Trenk, born of his first wife who perished in childbirth, and the twins Tiron and Tauron, begotten of his second.
When Trenk came into the world, some counseled Wutan to send the child away to distant kin, or even to abandon him in the wild woods, deeming the mother’s death a curse and a dark omen upon the house. But Wutan rebuked such folly, saying that no son of Krak would forsake his own blood, and he would not be the first to break that ancient vow.
Of the three, Trenk most resembled his father in form, yet least in spirit. For Wutan was a lord of wisdom, steadfast in peace, one who ruled not by the sword but by the strength of word and counsel. Trenk, however, was quick of temper and fierce of will, believing as many proud lords of the North did, that peace could only be won through might, and that peace founded upon words alone was fragile and false.
When Wutan’s life came to its end — said to be by sickness, though such maladies seldom touched elven-kind — whispers spoke of poison or curse. Many of his vassals urged that one of the twins should take his place as lord of the House, but the brothers refused, for they knew their father’s will: that Trenk, his firstborn, should inherit his mantle.
Blinded by love, Wutan had not seen the darkness in his son’s heart. And so Trenk, once he had taken up rule over the House of Krak and its vassal lands, governed with an iron hand. He sought to forge peace through fear, and unity through conquest. Some of the discontented vassals turned in secret to Tiron and Tauron, yet the brothers would not rise against their own kin, saying only that time would temper their brother’s wrath.
But time did not heal the North. The counsel of the twins fell on deaf ears, and Trenk strayed ever further from his father’s wisdom. He waged war where Wutan had sought peace, until House Krak found itself enmeshed in a great conflict — a war that, unknowingly, they themselves had helped ignite.
In that war, the twins urged their brother to honor the ancient creed of Krak — to stand beside those wronged and unjustly assailed. Yet Trenk spurned them and lent his strength instead to the side that promised greater wealth and power.
The last straw came when Trenk permitted one of his captains to violate the daughter of a rival lord before her father’s eyes, to break his spirit through shame. Such was the vileness of that deed that Tiron and Tauron renounced all ties to their house — their names, their honors, and their inheritance. Following the counsel of their mother, who refused to leave her husband’s tomb, they departed southward, toward the kingdom of Sudher, founded by the daughter of Antigon, last High King of the Elves, and kin to them through their mother’s line.
They led a weary host of exiles — elders, children, women, and the wounded — fleeing from the wrath of their own brother, who took their defiance as an unforgivable insult. Down they followed the course of the Great Central River, whose waters rose in the icy north and flowed toward the lands they sought. After many months of hardship, they reached a place just north of where the Grey River, born of the Black Mountains, meets the Great River. There, as the mists lifted, they beheld a fair and open vale, bathed in sunlight, and knew that their long trial had come to an end.
The vale had been carved by the waters of the Great River, whose banks they had followed since their flight from the north. At its heart lay a green and fertile isle, encircled by the river’s crystal arms. There they made camp; and upon that island, in days to come, would rise the city of Arlon, whose name in the elder tongue of the elves means “Bright Vale.”
Weary of the road, many of the refugees chose to dwell there rather than journey farther south. Tiron too remained, with half of the soldiers who had guarded them since the northern snows. Tauron, however, pressed on with the rest, leading his people toward the southern lands he had long desired to reach.
At last, Tauron came to a wide and fertile plain that lay northwest of the delta of the Great River, marking the northernmost border of Sudher. The king of that realm, moved by the tale of the two princes and the suffering of their folk, offered them aid, counsel, and friendship.
In that place, Tauron and his followers raised a new city, naming it Erdan, which in the old elven tongue means “Green Field,” where green signifies not color alone but fruitfulness. Tauron was hailed as king of Erdan, and Tiron as king of Arlon.
Thus the brothers took for their house the name by which the nobles of Sudher had come to know them — Fornorimar, meaning “Lords of the Northern Lands.”
Through the long ages that followed, both realms grew in peace. Arlon came to rule the wide lands between the Black Mountains and the Central Range, while Erdan expanded to encompass the delta of the Great River after Sudher’s fall.
And so it was that the twin realms of Arlon and Erdan, which men would later call the Elven Kingdoms, rose to prominence in the heart of Noritvy, guardians of peace in that vast continent. Perhaps because their founders had fled a war of brother against brother in the frozen North, their kings, above all others, strove ever to ensure that such a tragedy would never again befall their people, nor the lands they had come to call home.
Translation note: text translated into English with the help of AI. I apologize for any possible writing errors.