The Westfold

The continent so named as it lies to the West of the ocean known as The Fold.

Size
Roughly twice as large as the ocean to the East of it the Westfold is land that is one of transition. A great waste and the Northern Orc Tribes lie to the North. An icy desert to the SouthEast and the NorthWest the fabled land of the gods.

History
Once nearly three quarters of its current size the Westfold was once covered in water nearly a foot deep in the lowlands. The Westfold was once covered in a wild land of swamp and thick vegetation.

In the recent age Humans migrated from their racial homeland to the east and conquered much of the Westfold. Currently their power is much less prominent than it was 1000 years ago but their migration led to a system of feudality and honor among the races that were considered vastly uncivililzed and wild.

Prior to Milo the Conqueror and the migration of humans from the East the Westfold was inhabitated in large by Dwarves who built cities and mined the mountaings, Gnomes who traded goods and wandered the land in roaming hordes and Elves who inhabited the wilds in small tribes and worked on their magical powers above all things.

After the migration of Humans following the renown stories of Milo the Conqueror that traveled across The Fold the Westfold change dramatically. Dwarves were chased underground and their cities were inhabited or razed to the ground, the gnome hordes were conquered and chased into becoming gypsies and merchants, and the elves were persecuted for their wild magic and reverence for the wilds they lived in.

Bringing with them the destruction of their Human way of life across the sea they brought with them their ideals. They forced ways of Honor and feudailty upon the remaining races. They changed currency away from bartering to coinage. They changed the landscape from wilds to farmlands. Erected vast forts to control the land and protect their peasants. The humans that migrated considered themselves above all other races of The Westfold and so the decline of the other races began.

Human Age
Following Milo the Conqueror and beginning with a new age the humans began a new history in the Westfold. The Old Empire was considered new. The death of Milo the Conqueror fractured the once cohesive human race into divisions and cities quickly became independent and conquered lands from each other. The 2nd century of the Westfold in the common era was one that changed racial wars into wars over ownership. Humans were considered above all other races but they quickly began warring each other.

During their wars they enlisted the other races and offered them more and more freedoms in return for their service. Humans own wealth dwindled and refugees sought safer lands farther to the west where elves and wild gnomes were known to be accomodating.

Second Migration Westward
A persistent state of war forced more and more humans out of their easterly homes. A small percentage of them traveled to the believed sanctuary of the west where it was believed they would be met with kindness. In reality the humans were in fact met with the kindness of the previously migrated elves and gnomes but the humans disregarded the other races acceptance and practices knowledge of wild magic to be heresy to the gods of the world that were a fact in their own existence. The migrated humans quickly turned prophets and the religious into a westward sweep of religious wars against the other races yet again.

The elves were pushed further west where they felt safe to practice their magic and live in the wilderness while the gnomes feared migrating and found themselves either forced into the human way of life, to ignore their innate magical abilities or be forced into servitude beneath the religious rulers that the humans placed upon the thrones of elves the west.

Continental War
Quickly the religious differences of the humans from the East and West brought the continent to war in the first century after Millo the Conqueror's death.