The world of Koldenwelt has a rich and diverse history, and its myriad peoples tell countless stories both of its ancient past, and of times far older too. How many of these are mere fiction, and how many tell of greater truths, is a mystery to all but the most ancient beings who reside upon its lands. Here is a selection of some of its most famous, compelling, and unusual legends.
Archipelagan antediluvian myth[]
The beliefs of the Archipelago Elves about the time before they colonised the Archipelago are sometimes given the dubious honour of the least accurate stories of Koldenwelt's history, although this perception is almost entirely due to their story of the Eye's creation, which contradicts both the historical records of other Deiwos races and the opinions of magical scholars who doubt that the Eye could be anything less than a divine artefact. It is perhaps most notable for not only avoiding any mention of Caligaduro Provectus despite his imprisonment underneath the Archipelago, but also for being seemingly unaware even of the Void Denizens that once roamed vast swathes of the planet.
At the end of the Adamantine Age, so the legend states, the Kingdom of the Elves enjoyed dominion over the entire known world, from the Archipelago Peninsula to the Polar Lands, and from the Western Forests to the Great Eastern Wall. In practice, the various tribes and city-states of such a large empire generally acted according to their own will, and were only kept under control by the frequent visits of imperial ambassadors and their associated contingents of armed escorts. The Sorcerer-King of the Elves, Calaro, wishing to bring the peoples of the world more securely under his command, began construction of a powerful magical weapon. He forced the Klaxxa to craft for him a large enchanted gemstome, which he placed in a clay mould.
When an elvish uprising that was taking place in the north had been quelled, the leader of the rebels was brought to Calaro's palace and tied to a chair beneath which the mould was placed. The Sorcerer-King then used a torture device, somewhat resembling a cheese grater, to grind the Elf's arm into blood-drenched powder which the fell into the mould. The rebel only screamed for a few seconds before he fainted. Once the mould was full, the bone and the blood and the gem were baked to form a bleached-white ball of concrete agony, and then dipped into a vat of molten orichalcum and adamantine. Several more arcane rituals were performed to embue the weapon with power, then it was removed from the vat and the metal was left to set. The forging of the Eye was complete.
Rumours spread throughout the lands, sparking mass open rebellion, and the first world war began. It was without comparison to any war before or since, as the height of Elven technology was combined with the might of an adamantine weapon for every soldier. Although Calaro intended to use the Eye to give his armies a quick victory, he underestimated its power. As he held the Eye in the palm of his hand he saw the truth, and the truth that he saw was that Koldenwelt should not be able to sustain all of the life that it did. The Source was keeping Koldenwelt alive, and without its influence most of the land would be dead. In this same instant, he found that the Eye stung his hand, and he dropped it into a crack in the ground. But for the fraction of a second in which the Eye was in his grasp, it had time to hear his command, and that single device exerted his will over the entire Source. Unfortunately both for his men and for everyone else, this command was of death and destruction, and the thought on his mind was of how much death and destruction there would be if the Source loosened its grip over Koldenwelt, if only for a year.
The war raged on for several days before anybody noticed any difference. The first signs of change were that rivers began to change their courses, flowing southwards from the Great Eastern Wall instead of cutting through the Eastern Plains. In the next few weeks, the rivers dried up, and the grasslands of the Plains turned into desert. The Western Forests were next hit, as tropical storms came from the oceans and tore up every last tree. The storms raged constantly, slowly refilling the dried-up rivers but in the wrong direction. The saltwater rivers soon burst their banks, and flash floods destroyed nearly every last trace of civilisation in the Tropical Lands.
The leader of one tribe of Elves in the Duritia Peninsula had made a prophecy that this would occur, but that survival would be possible in a land that lay almost directly to the south. His kind survived the destruction of their coastal homes by sailing in that direction through the storm-whipped sea, and when the floodwaters receded, the ships landed on the islands that had once had been the tip of the Archipelago Peninsula, and the Elves made this their new home. Their descendants, of course, were the Archipelago Elves.