Ar-Garalyn

The Ar-Garalyn were an ancient, enigmatic people who dwelt in the lands surrounding the River Chionthar, the Reaching Woods, and what is now Berdusk, as early as -4000 DR and perhaps as late as 150 DR.

Almost nothing is known of them with certainty. What few records remain come from shattered ruins, half-erased glyphs, and a handful of Candlekeep fragments such as the Codex Ilythar. Even their name survives only as a transliteration from fragmentary inscriptions, which linguistic scholars translate as "those who remember."

Today, the Ar-Garalyn are remembered only in whispers — as a vanished people, a half-forgotten race of sages and seers who may have mastered Resonance, the art of shaping the world with thought rather than spell or prayer.

Appearance and nature

Ancient accounts — what few exist — suggest that the Ar-Garalyn were a fey-orcish people, tall and lithe, with features both wild and refined. Some scholars speculate they were related to the Ondonti, the peaceful orcs who revere Eldath, though no surviving texts confirm this connection.

They bear the grace of the green courts and the strength of the mountains, and in their eyes there were motes of what I can only describe as actual starlight.
— Codex Ilythar, Introduction to Chapter 1

Culture and achievements

The Ar-Garalyn are believed to have been deeply contemplative, valuing memory, wisdom, and the transmission of knowledge. Their greatest works were not castles or monuments, but Memory Vaults — psionic repositories where entire lifetimes of thought and experience were preserved.

They seem to have lived in harmony with the Reaching Woods, shaping rather than taming the land. Traces of their settlements suggest open courts, circle-stones, and amphitheaters meant for meditation or instruction.

The Fall of the Ar-Garalyn

Their disappearance from history is as mysterious as their lives. By most accounts, the human warrior Berdusk Orcslayer and his followers drove the Ar-Garalyn from the Chionthar valley sometime before the founding of the city that now bears his name.

Why Berdusk spared the ancient mage tower near what is now Evenshade is unknown. Curiously, the tower remains untouched, unmarred by war or weather, as though the centuries dare not claim it.

Some scholars argue that Berdusk’s forces respected the tower — or feared it. Others claim the tower was defended not by blade or ward, but by the minds of those who built it.

Legacy and ruins

Today, only scattered ruins remain of the Ar-Garalyn’s civilization — broken stones deep in the Reaching Woods, half-buried glyph circles, and subterranean vaults long forgotten.

Few dare to enter these places. Hunters speak of strange dreams near their borders, and bards sing of travelers who wandered too far into the woods and returned days later with no memory of the passage of time.

Scholarly debate

Most Faerûnian scholars know nothing of the Ar-Garalyn, and of those who have, some doubt the Ar-Garalyn ever existed at all. To them, the Ar-Garalyn are just another name in a long list of pre-human orcish tribes.

But in Evenshade and Berdusk, the memory of the Ar-Garalyn lingers. The Temple-Library of Oghma holds several manuscripts that speak of them with deep respect — and fantastic curiosity.