FRV-Regional History

The long term history of the Foam River Valley is poorly known. There are historians at both Caldur University and Artulin Academy who know much more, but they usually don't volunteer such information. What is more commonly known is that humans came to this region around 500 years ago, founding the city of Caldur where the Foam River comes within about a mile of itself. Small human settlements sprang up around Caldur from there, most of them simple farming villages that supported the burgeoning population of Caldur. Ever since the city of Caldur became a larger settlement, it has been subjected to hordes of orcs crossing the plain in an attempt to sack it. Forty years ago, the mages of Artulin Academy fought the orcs in much larger numbers than they usually do, and wiped the orcs out before they could ever get close to the city. Usually, these hordes appear every 15 to 20 years, but they haven't been seen since, but as people in Caldur are beginning to suspect, they may be back soon...

Very rare knowledge: Before the Great Catastrophe, a great civilization built a tremendous city in what is now the great hill. It was a many layered city, laid out like a circular pyramid, with the king and queen living in the top most layer. This civilization diverted the River Foam to form an almost complete moat surrounding the entire city, with the only gap being where the city Caldur now stands. When the Great Catastrophe happened, the lowest layer of the city collapsed and sank a good 10-15 feet into the ground. Much of the upper layers didn't survive the destruction either and the vast majority of the people living in the city died. Amazingly, the king survived the distruction, and with the few remaining survivors, established a small town in the foothills on the east side of the valley (near where the town of Kingsholm now stands), where the king eventually died. Over the next 1000 years, dirt slowly began to cover up the remains of the great city, so that by the time explorers rediscovered the region, it simply appeared that there was a great big hill in the center of the vally circled by the river. By this time, the region had grown incredibly wild, and bands of savage humanoids constantly destroyed any signs of civilization that popped up. This pattern continued for centuries, with some settlements getting quite large before being finally destroyed. The two most common places to build where at the top of the hill, and where the city Caldur now stands. This pattern continued until the Dragon Wars, when the most successful city to date was wiped completely off the map (it was at the top of the hill) by a trio of dragons, one fire, one cold, and one acid. The region stayed wild for almost 1000 years, until new explorers and settlers arrived and founded the city Caldur and the many small farming and logging villages that now dot the countryside.