The Rise and Fall of Old Rhest and Rhestilor

"Where the swan banners flew, now the reeds remember."

Old Rhest: The City of Crowns

• Founded millennia ago, Old Rhest was once the center of a high human civilization, predating Rhestilor and even the rise of the Vale’s current cultures.
• Built atop cyclopean foundations laid by a vanished pre-human race (some say aboleths, serpentfolk, or primordials), Rhest became a beacon of arcane and religious might.
• It was ruled by a Magocratic High Council, advised by elven seers and dwarven lorekeepers.
• The city was known for:
• The Swan Tower, a white spire of mirrored glass.
• The Marshwalk Canals, magical paths that traversed the then-shallow lake.
• The Great Archive of Torseldan, holding ancient elemental, necromantic, and planar texts.

The Doom Below

Around 500 to 600 CE, Rhest’s arcanists grew increasingly obsessed with unlocking planar and necrotic forces. They excavated forgotten vaults beneath the lake—sealed chambers older than any dwarf memory.

In doing so, they awoke something.

The Sleeper in the Mire — a vast, semi-divine aberrant entity, possibly a corrupted elder being or a cursed primordial shard — began to seep into the city's dreams and waters.

• Plagues swept the city.
• Nobles disappeared or turned pale and silent, speaking in unknown tongues.
• A cult emerged within the council itself, known as the Eye Beneath.

By the time neighboring cities learned of the danger, it was too late.

The Battle of Old Rhest

Year: Circa 600 CE
Location: The ancient city of Rhest, in what is now the Blackfens of the Elsir Vale
Conflict: Collapse of Old Rhest
Belligerents:

• High Council of Rhest & Loyalist Forces (human wizards, knights, Tiri Kitor allies, dwarf allies)

versus

• The Eye Beneath (cultists, necromancers, swampspawn, undead, aberrant horrors)
• The Sleeper in the Mire

Prelude to the Battle

For decades, the city of Rhest had prospered, wielding unmatched arcane power and regional influence. But beneath its glittering towers, ancient vaults and sealed planar gates were disturbed.

• The Council's Mages delved too greedily into pre-human ruins.
• The Eye Beneath, a cult worshipping a deep aberrant entity (possibly a Far Realm shard or corrupted primordial), infiltrated the High Council.
• By 595 CE, civil unrest gripped the city — nobles disappeared, night-beasts prowled the streets, and rivers of blood ran beneath the glass bridges.

The Tiri Kitor elves warned of doom. Their warnings were ignored.

The Battle Begins

In Spring of 600 CE, a faction of loyalist Rhestian defenders, aided by Tiri Kitor scouts and dwarven siege-breakers from Khundrukar, attempted to purge the city of the cult.

But they were too late.

• The Swan Tower exploded in a massive blast of arcane feedback, flooding magical ley channels.
• The Sleeper in the Mire began warping reality around the fens.
• The Eye Beneath unleashed a blightstorm and an army of drowned dead from the lake’s depths.
• Loyalist soldiers mutated mid-battle into twisted horrors as wards collapsed.

The High Magister Arel Thorne fell in battle, betrayed by his own apprentice who had joined the cult.

The Flood and Fall

As the battle raged, magical containment around the lake failed.

• The fens surged, flooding entire districts.
• War mages tried to cast a citywide banishment ritual—but were disrupted by madness and possession.
• A skyfire beacon summoned by elven archmages collapsed the causeway, isolating the inner city.
• The remaining defenders made a final stand at the Hall of Law, holding off wave after wave of abominations.

Their last act: they sealed the central vaults of Rhest with runes of containment and drowned in the rising waters.

Aftermath

• Rhest was declared lost by 602 CE. Survivors fled west, founding outposts that later became Brindol and Dennovar.
• The Eye Beneath vanished into the ruins but left lasting corruption in the land.
• The Tiri Kitor imposed a sacred interdiction over the area. Even today, they refuse to enter the core ruins.
• A generation later, the kingdom of Rhestilor was born from Rhest’s ashes—but always lived under its shadow.

Age of Founding (c. 700 CE)

• After the fall of Old Rhest (see above), human settlers and refugees gathered in the central Elsir Vale, founding a new kingdom called Rhestilor, named after the legendary city of Rhest.
• It grew from a small fortified town into a feudal monarchy, claiming lands from the Wyrmsmoke Mountains to the Thornwaste, and from the Golden Plains to the Witchwood.
• The kingdom was known for:
• Strong alliances with elves of the Tiri Kitor and dwarves of the nearby mountains.
• Knightly orders sworn to uphold peace on the Dawn Way.
• Arcane colleges descended from ancient Rhestian lore.

Height of Power (c. 900–1100 CE)

• Under King Elnar the Just, Rhestilor experienced a golden age:
• Fortresses such as Dennovar, Brindol, and Marthon Keep expanded.
• Trade routes opened with Hammerfast and Zilargo via riverways and portals.
• The Rhestilor Banner Guard patrolled the Vale, famed for their shining mail and lion-crested helms.
• The capital, New Rhest, was built over the ruins of Old Rhest on a massive artificial causeway into the swamp.

The Rot from Below (c. 1100–1180 CE)

• As the kingdom expanded, its scholars and mages disturbed ancient magics and forgotten vaults beneath the Vale and in the Blackfens.
• Something answered.
• Necrotic forces and aberrant entities one again awoke in the fens.
• Swamp-dwellers went mad. The dead stirred.
• New Rhest began to sink into the swamp.

Despite efforts by Queen Anelra Moonshield and her elven allies, the rot could not be stopped. The Court of Rhestilor moved to Dennovar as the capital drowned in corruption.

The Final Collapse (c. 1200 CE)

• A series of civil wars erupted as warlords, nobles, and cults battled for control of the shrinking kingdom.
• The Black Drake Host, a rebel faction from the east, burned Brindol.
• Tiri Kitor elves retreated into the Witchwood, breaking ties.
• The dwarves closed their gates, citing ancestral omens.

By c. 1250 CE, the kingdom was no more — its cities abandoned, its ruins overgrown, and its name a whispered warning among travelers.

Legacy in the Present Era (~1470 CE / post-Red Hand of Doom)

• Brindol, Dennovar, and other cities are now independent city-states with fragmentary rule.
• The Blackfens still hold the ruins of Old and New Rhest, now drowned and haunted by the past.
• The Red Hand of Doom sought to claim Rhest’s legacy and power — their leader Abithriax used corrupted Rhestian artifacts.
• Elven scouts claim the Sleeper in the Mire stirs once more, possibly to keep others out of their area.
• Some noble families in Brindol still wear the old crests and keep ancestral weapons from Rhestilor’s banner guard.