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At the Dawning, the whole of the region now called Balazar was included as part of the Elder Wilds. The region was dotted with clumps of gaunt trees where lonely elves huddled in bitter defence. Human families skulked in the shadows, seeking stark fare to eke out their miserable lives. Dwarves were buttressed in Greatway, but their interests had been in Dragon Pass and they had sent few patrols to this region. Only troll war-parties stalked the land in strength, crossing the cold mountains from Dagori Inkarth to fulfil their pledge to fight and destroy chaos every place. The ascent of the sun and the passage of the Lightbringers quickly brought back the old life to the land, and the ancient scrub woods blossomed into lush forests nearly as rich as the virgin woods which had once been there. Elves even planted some Great Trees of Shanassee in their strongholds. Game returned too, and the human hunters grew stronger. The humans at this time were children of Votank, and his descendants were called Votanki.
During that time there was no fight between ancient races, for they still remembered their mutual struggle against chaos. Their greatest alliance was the First Council, made up of elves, dwarves, dragonewts, trolls, humans, and the otherwise unknown Gold Wheel Dancers. When ambassadors from the First Council came to Balazar they were quickly accepted, and for generations the region lived in peace and grew to health. The elves sailed their lake and rivers, carrying dwarf goods northward after being boated down to the Dwerrow River. Trolls continued their gustatory control of the dinosaurs, and dragonewts settled several colonies. Humans hunted to their bellies' delight as animal herds grew, engaging in a silent struggle with trees for the good of the plains. At least one human from the area was famous enough to be accepted in the Contest for Kerofin's Necklace held in Dragon Pass in 178. When the wars began, many residents from the area joined armies and fought their foes. The troll population was greatly reduced by war, but the area was not invaded by the enemy horsemen from the north.
The Second Council was formed to rule the empire. When it moved to Dorastor, it was supported by many from Balazar who accompanied it, and Balazar seems to have drifted into drowsy peace lasting until the end of the age, when the Gbaji problems began. The Second Council unveiled a plan to construct a god through the use of their own powers and those of the land of Dorastor. The trolls objected heavily and withdrew, followed shortly by the dragonewts. After that the government was called the Broken Council. The new god named himself Nysalor. He was a strikingly handsome godling and sensitive enough to break anyone's heart. One of his first, childish, acts was to curse the trolls and dragonewts. The dragonewts sloughed off their curse, sending it into the maws of a hungry dragon. But the trolls were overcome, and tragically began birthing trollkin instead of healthy children.
The struggle between council and troll also turned into a fight between all the Elder Races, opening many old sores closed since the Dawn. The elves were aided by the council, and the trolls were driven from the Elder Wilds. The elves of the Elder Wilds, with their allies, settled into a period of peace under the benevolent reign of Nysalor, the Golden One, the God of Peloria, who united Dragon Pass Lightbringers with lowland Sunfolk and horsemen. There were raids and fights with the damnable trolls in their ancient stronghold of Dagori Inkarth, but the miserable wretches were easily contained.
Elf and human warriors from the region are known to have served with the armies of the Broken Council in their wars against the west, though no details are known. A foreign army landed in the Shadowlands, ruled by the trolls from south of Dragon Pass. The trolls joined the army of the invader, and they marched north against the armies of Gbaji. The foreigner was Arkat Humaktsson, a knight from the far west whose life had been spent hunting the Golden God. The forces of the region mustered to drive off the foe. The Battle of Travelling Stone was met and the result was a victory for Arkat and his allies, while the elves from Balazar were slain to nearly a one.
Afterwards Arkat became a troll and furthered their cause in the Elder Wilds. Terror and fear reigned. Tribes swarmed over the Wyrms High Pass and the Giants Pass to burn woods and kill elves. Some settled; the fighting went into the next age, after Arkat was long gone.
As with many kingdoms of the Elder Races, the peoples of Balazar fought and troubled each other mercilessly through the Second Age. The dissension between elf, dwarf, troll, and dragonewt left the region badly weakened, and the Votanki humans were able to improve their own position by carefully playing one side against another to their own advantage. This made them half-enemies of all the non-human races and established a distrust that plagued relationships ever afterwards. After two centuries of such troubles, the lands were broached by outsiders. In 717, a large army from the Redlands passed southward through the plains occupied by the Votanki, stealing and killing wherever they went. They seriously disrupted the herds when they passed, and many of the Votanki knew hunger the next winter.
When the westernmost clans of Votanki sighted the nomads returning northward loaded with booty early the next summer, they hastened to their chiefs who determined to act together against the foe. They were aided by a few trolls and dragonewts as well, who desired to recapture some of the ancestral treasures stolen by the nomads while plundering Dragon Pass. In 718, the Redland nomads were ambushed at Highbridge. Their forces were divided by the bridge and they were destroyed half at a time by the frantic hunters. Although many nomads escaped the terrible slaughter, they did so without their plunder. The non-humans took their goods back, the rest was divided among the victors, and some items of great note were set aside to be returned to their owners in Dragon Pass.
The Voltanki king Hargaard Silverfist was the envoy who returned the treasure to the Empire of the Wyrms Friends in Dragon Pass in the year 720. His trip's profit surprised him, and he returned with tales of great wealth and splendour. Few were distressed when envoys from the empire came to their lands and solicited support. Hargaard consented, and so did the local elves. These two forces, with Imperial dragonewt aid, suppressed the dwarves and drove the trolls back over the mountains, and then entered a period of relative peace. The trolls sacked the city and shallower tunnels of Greatway about this time, probably in the year 747, and also burned the forests covering the land now called Dangerground. In 826 the rulers of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends altered their government to a magical theocracy bent upon reestablishing the magical powers of the Gods Age in their land through the manipulation of the unusual Dragon Magics. They called their new organization the Third Council. For some time this succeeded, but internal dissension began in 889, when the rulers ordered their subjects to worship them as gods. This brought protests, and the Aldryami of the Elder Wilds were the first to protest militarily. They seceded, and in 890 invaded with a strong raid which escaped unscathed.
Humans, less repulsed by the orders, fought the elves for some time, but the region was generally trucial. The elves were hard pressed by their traditional foes, the trolls, for the elves had no imperial aid. The humans gained the southern forests as their realm by promising the elves that they would kill trolls, and by telling trolls they would kill elves. This was the first clear-cut agreement which delivered any of the region to humans directly. The elves probably planned to retake it at their convenience, but that has not come about yet.
Dissatisfaction with the leaders of the Third Council grew until at last the Votanki peoples agreed to throw off their draconic yoke. Many other borderlands of the Third Council were also revolting. At first the Votanki were overrun by a brilliant raid by Third Council mercenaries. The Votanki asked for outside help from bands of mercenary adventurers, who thought they might seize themselves a kingdom while aiding the hunters. Many failed.
In 1082 the leader named Balazar came from the northwest lands with his cult of Tharkantus and made many friends with the Votanki, both through his military skills and through his wisdom in dealing with the simple hunters. Within five years he was hailed as the leader of all those peoples, and two years later he was crowned as King Balazar. His lands became the Lands of Balazar, later called simply Balazar after him. Ever since then the clans have revered him as their greatest hero and taken his name as their own. Balazar built two citadels and tried to bring agriculture to the region. The soil was too poor for such work, though. Balazar did steal a magical idol of Entra, the Sow Goddess, for his people, and since that time pigs have been raised at the citadels.
In 1042 the Third Council was ended by dragonewt betrayal. The lizardmen launched a great offensive against the heart of the council as invaders battered the borderlands, destroying armies and liberating the lands. The Council fell, and the lands were left to the dragonewt natives. In the Elder Wilds old antagonisms broke out anew, and the humans were hard-pressed to keep their lands because of many successful troll and elf ambushes in the wilds.
When peoples turned covetous eyes towards the dragon and lizard riches of Dragon Pass they often found, or made up, reasons to go raiding there. Soon all peoples turned upon their former dragonewt allies and began destroying their nests. The natives of Dragon Pass found allies and defended stoutly until their foes finally united in an attempt to destroy all bodies and eggs of the ancient race.
The invaders massed and called themselves the True Golden Horde. They approached from several routes, thinking thereby to gain enough entry to suffer some defeats and some victories, but overwhelming the dragonewts by sheer numbers. This invasion began in 1100. They had not counted on the help which the dragonewts could muster from other realms. In 1120 the armies were met by hundreds of dragons of all types, returning to protect their ancestral home. Dragons fell, both dream and true, but no army could withstand them. Thousands of people were slain in the war later called the Dragonkill War. Less than a hundred people survived, and only one single ghost is reported to have returned to the Balazarings to report the disaster.
After that the sons of Balazar decided that they would best suit themselves and their people by remaining at home, and for nearly the whole of the next age they did that. Dragon Pass was closed through fear and superstition, and Balazar entered a period of isolation and primitive squalor.
The kingdom which Balazar had hoped to found was an empty dream in this infertile land. The hunter chiefs who tended the children of Balazar raised each according to their own tribal interests, so the three sons were quarrelsome rather than cooperative. The division of the citadels was mutually acceptable. The former Kingdom of Balazar became the dull and empty Land of Balazar where robber barons hid deep in the wilds, safe with their gold behind ancient stone walls. In 1250 a trio of giants began ravaging travelers near the citadel of Dykene, and the king was killed in combat with them. They tore the citadel down almost to the ground and scattered the survivors. It remained in ruin until 1580 when rebuilding began under the direction of the great-grandfather of Skiful Heartpiercer, the current ruler.
Around the year 1300 wanderers and refugees increasingly moved into Balazar from the west. These were mostly barbarians who worshipped Yelmalio or Orlanth, and who were retreating before the encroaching Lunar Empire. The tribes accepted some, many died, and more stayed or passed on as they wished. Many raised bands of hungry or greedy hunters who followed them into wars. Thus, many Balazarings went away to the lower lands for several years, led by foreigners.
Many Balazarings were among the allies or in the pay of the newly formed Tarsh army, which followed a pair of divine children. These children were the Twins, and they were the Founders of the Tarsh Kingdom. While still young they took their motley army against the glittering Lunar regulars. The Twins revealed their awesome earthshaking powers and buried the Lunar host in the Battle of Falling Hills. This was in 1362, and after that most of the anti-Lunar refugees went to Tarsh rather than bleak Balazar.
During the following period, Balazarings might be sought as skirmishers by any of the combatants, whether Lunar, Tarsh, or nomad. The Balazarings were enough drained of fighters that clan chiefs preferred to keep their warriors at home where they could be used for important things like finding food and fighting for or against one or the other citadel king. During this period the royal dynasties of the citadels changed often. Sometimes one of the thrones was taken by a foreign adventurer, sometimes by a conservative great old chief, sometimes by some vigorous-thinking hunter with his grandfather's set of chainmail. There were a few clashes with trolls or elves, but life was little changed from the days when Balazar's sons ruled there. Beyond the borders of the lands the surge of Lunar tide washed from north to south. To the storytellers in the plains "Lunar" became another name for the lowland farmer.
Kings of the citadels made occasional names for themselves, either through wise and peaceful rule or glorious bloody ones. The citadel of Elkoi was ruled between 1526-1564 by the vigorous Vizkinni clan, who were clever and lucky in war. The greatest of them was the last, King Partobas the Bold, who so often led successful raids against the Lunar provinces that all of his soldiers rode Lunar mounts. In 1563 the patience of the Lunar Provincial Commander gave way and he ordered a punitive expedition against the raiders. In the early spring of 1564 a small column of Lunar soldiers set off, rapidly made their way to Elkoi, then took the citadel after three days of seige and a single magical assault. They stuck the head of Partobas atop the old gate and sold his relatives into slavery. The Lunars placed a loyal hunter named Bykotus, who had guided them thence, on the throne of the citadel and left loyal soldiers to help him. Ever since that time Elkoi has been occuppied by troops under the distant command of the Lunar Provincial Commander, and Glyptus, the descendant of Bykotus, still rules there.
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