The 40 Year War

From the shaded groves of Mountainrun, the elves watched as war ignited in the east, spreading like wildfire through the cragged lands of Steerbright. It was a conflict born not of ancient grudges or ideological divide but of desperation—the orcish migration, driven by hunger and the creeping shadow that lingered in the east, clashed violently with the dwarves who still claimed the Dragonspine mountains as their home.

The elves, led by King Aranethil Starleaf, observed the unfolding war but did not lift their bows nor summon their mages. For the first time in centuries, they turned their gaze inward, letting the bloodshed beyond their borders pass without intervention.

A Debt Unpaid

To the elves, the Forty-Year War was not an elven conflict.

Decades prior, as Lumispire fell to darkness in 1395 BGW, the elves had sent desperate envoys westward to the great Dwarven cities of Dumathar and Kharak-Dur, pleading for aid against the encroaching Drith. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.
King Maldrak Stonegaze, the dwarven ruler at the time, had chosen to hoard the riches of his kingdom, refusing to risk his forces or the strength of his forges to defend elven lands.

The elves had not forgotten. When the dwarves' call for aid reached Mountainrun in 942 BGW, as orcish warbands surged across their borders, Aranethil Starleaf’s response was silence.

“The mountains stood silent as Lumispire burned. Let them now stand alone beneath the weight of their own choices.”
– Aranethil Starleaf

Observing from Afar

Though they did not march to war, the elves watched closely. Scouts hidden beneath the shadowed boughs of Mountainrun observed as dwarven fortresses crumbled beneath the relentless orcish sieges. The elves whispered of the orcs' brutality—their war drums echoing through the valleys of Steerbright, shaking the very stones of Dumathar.

Yet there was no celebration of the dwarves' misfortune. In truth, the war brought little satisfaction to the elves of Mountainrun. Aranethil and his council recognized the inevitable truth—a fractured Steerbright would only lead to further instability across the Ancient Reach.

By the war’s third decade, orcish forces had begun pushing westward, drawing uncomfortably close to the elven borders. Patrols along the Frostvein River doubled, and while no open conflict erupted, the elves knew the orcs’ hunger for land would not end with the dwarves.

The Closing of Mountainrun

As the war dragged on, Mountainrun’s borders grew tighter.

• Trade routes to the east were severed, as elven merchants no longer dared risk the journey through contested lands.
• Rockcrest, the agricultural heart of Mountainrun, flourished in isolation, increasing crop production to sustain the growing elven population as outside trade dwindled​
• The Under City deepened its wards, strengthening magical defenses around elven settlements that lay closer to the eastern edges.

Though no formal declaration of hostility passed between elves and orcs, unspoken borders were drawn, and occasional skirmishes erupted between elven scouts and stray orcish warbands.

The Fall of Dumathar and the End of the War (900 BGW)

In 900 BGW, the dwarven capital of Dumathar fell to the orcs, marking the end of the Forty-Year War. The once-great halls of the dwarves were left smoldering, their forges extinguished, and their people scattered across the lands in search of refuge.

As the last of the dwarven kings fled into exile, the orcs claimed Steerbright as their own, carving their dominion into the bones of the Dragonspine.

To the elves, this victory was hollow.

Mountainrun’s eastern patrols were doubled, and King Aranethil dispatched emissaries to the orcish warlords, seeking uneasy truces that preserved elven lands. Though orcish expansion slowed in the decades following their victory, their presence loomed large, and the fragile peace that followed the Forty-Year War remained shadowed by the possibility of future conflict.

Legacy and Reflection

To the elves, the Forty-Year War became more than a dwarven tragedy—it was a cautionary tale of isolation and betrayal. While Aranethil’s refusal to aid the dwarves preserved elven lives and safeguarded Mountainrun, it also deepened the divide between elves and dwarves that had festered since the fall of Lumispire.

For centuries to follow, relations between the two races would remain cold.

Even as Dumathar’s ruins faded into myth, the elves of Mountainrun continued to guard their borders, knowing that while alliances might crumble, the land and sky remained eternal—and the memory of unspoken debts would endure far longer than stone.