I guess I'll add my homebrew in. Use this to solidify my thoughts... I'm a history major so a lot of my campaign history reflects some historic events in our real world. The original poster said to make it a short discription. But since this thread has been burried in the past week or so, I thought a nice, long discription might get some flare back into it. Maybe...
Edar
(note: Edar means 'earth' in draconic)
4000 to 5000+ years ago: The Planar Wars The Material Plane and all other planes have been in existence for thousands of years. Humanity and civilization had reached great heights and were thriving. However, through natural entropy great strife has slowly building up between the gods and planes. Many secret deals and alliances between planes were created and many knew the final days were coming soon. You see, the material plane is the central plane with all other planes circled around it. The outer planes do not touch each other, but do to touch the material plane. This to get from one plane to another, one must first travel through the material plane. Several records that have survived from this time explain a pact of druids whom worshipped the god of the air plane tracked down the son of the earth god whom was traveling on the material plane at the time as an ambassador. It is unknown if the druids acted own their own or if there were other forces involved, the records are not clear, but what is believed to have started as a tense name calling encounter escalated into the death of the earth god's son, Thio. The news of Thio's death spread quickly across the planes and Ragoon, god of earth mobilized his forces and began his march onto the material plane declaring total war upon the Air goddess Ilirya. Because of the complex series of alliances, pacts and defense agreements throughout the planes, the Planar War began. (This is blatantly a WW1 rip. But...)
The planes mobilized their vast armies and the material plane becomes the battlefield of the conflict. The god of the material plane could not field a large enough army nor negotiate a neutrality agreement in time, and was soundly dethroned of his godly powers. The rest of humanity became lost without a godly leader and thousands apon thousands of innocent lives were destroyed by the wake of these fantastical armies, marching across the material plane.
These few remaining recorder documents of the events and warfare that survived are now holy relics. All other information has been lost through the generations. No one is sure how long the fighting lasted and the records are not specific about it nor tell any specific dates. Some estimate one to two hundred years and still other folklore speak of thousands of years. In reality this is not important. What is important is that humanity had been driven into a state of near extinction. Small tribes of the former civilized humanoids eeked out what little living they could in the most remote areas on Edar, using all their resources to hide and escape the grand armies of the planes.
The ancient documents do not mention much of it. But many sages and students of lore believe that the only hope humanity had was with a small cluster of powerful wizards who were linked to the material plane god (his or her name is lost in history) in some way. Although this folklore is just that, folklore and cannot be proven, the sages and historians seem to confirm that this the story of the magi must be true, since it is the only story every culture tells the same, with hardly any discrepancies. Thus, the story goes that using all resources available to them, these wise and powerful magi were able to confine themselves from the armies of the planes and research the arcane way, believing they may discover some way to turn the armies away.
Through years apon years of diligent research, study, measurements, tests and failures, the magi were able to developed a spell that not even the gods would be able to reverse without extensive expender of resources. Resources the magi knew the planes did not have. This seal would close the planar gates and permanently close the material plane from the others; thus ending the blind carnage that was brought apon the material world. The portals however worked both ways and once the magi closed these doorways to the planes, they were closed from both ways and the armies that were already here would not be able to leave. The magi thought long and hard and decided that the planar armies would kill each other off, and in the end, the material plane and humanity would be saved. So, on a rocky shore of a desolate island with the waves blasting up from the water beneath them, the magi gathered and began. When they opened their eyes and stared into the sky, they could see the sun. For the first time in their life they saw the sun slowly sinking in the horizon. The sun blinded the magi at first and they turned their heads away. They were scared; scared that they may have done something terribly wrong. But oh how far from the truth that idea was. The skies were a menagerie of colors. Blues, purples, golds, oranges, yellows, and reds. The magi had never seen anything like it before. This is because when the portals were opened, the skies were dark, the sun nonexistent, and the weather constantly storming from the turmoil of the planar gates.
While the magi worked for those two to three hundred years (the recorders are lost on this as well) they created 15 tomes. These tomes were manuals of the planes and where known to have complete descriptions of the planes as well as ways untold depths of arcane knowledge. When the magi saw the beautiful world that was the material plane, they agreed that never again should the planes use the material plane as their personal battlefield. Some accounts say that the magi destroyed the 15 tomes, since it is believed that if anyone were to find and translate said tomes, all the secrets of the universe would be revealed. Other accounts say that the magi hid them across the world in remote areas... Guarded by the most fearsome magical beasts one could imagine...
1000-1500+ years ago: The Dark Ages The planar armies did not last very long once their link home hand vanished. Many planar creatures require nutrients that can only be found on their native plan, and thus starved to death when the supplies dried up. The ones that could survive on the material plane slowly died off from attrition and combat that still sprung up at times, although not as frequently.
Eventually the warfare died down and only individual planar creatures were left. Many of these beings were the elite of the elite, having been on the material plane since the first days. They roamed the landscape for years, lonely and brooding, seeking ways to some how return home or at least make the most out of their time left on the material plane. The demons, devils and other beings that were not kind found small tribes and villages and brainwashed the cultures (famously the Orc and goblinoid peoples) and corrupted their minds to further their own goals and power. Other planar creatures like angels, archons and such realized what they had been doing to the people of the material plane and began to repent their ways of combat. They would settle down with small tribal peoples and guarded them from predators and helped them grow (famously the humans, elves... PHB races) from small tribes of 30 people, into huge empires and kingdoms in the hundreds of thousands of people.
Like all good things (and evil things) the planar creatures that re-planted the seed of civilization eventually reached their times and passed away. In the world of Edar, huge temples dedicated to these beings can be found all over the world. Some long forgotten from some lost empire or kingdom who moved away to better land or had been destroyed by some rival. With their leaders gone humanity searched for other figures to guide them. Dragons who roamed the world, shunned by the planar beings and kept from interacting with humanity seemed to be perfect candidates, and slowly, dragons found themselves to be the new demi-gods to humanity. There are no records of what happened to the dragons or where they went during the planar wars. In fact, there are no records that dragons even existed before the planar wars. Many believe that dragons are the reincarnation of the planar beings, who's souls could not rest in peace on a foreign plane. But nobody is certain.
200-500 years ago: The Re-Birth of Civilization / Age of the Dragons Dragons became the movers and shakers, leaders, etc of the world. Humanity begins to forget its original saviors and worship the dragons as their gods. However this is not the case with some of the races that naturally live long such as the elves. But under the wings of the dragons, humanity again re-populates the face of the world. Major empires expand. The arcane ways a researched and studied, and there is general prosperity throughout the world with little to no conflicts. It is in this time period that several of the ancient tomes supposedly left by the great magi are located (two) and there is a global reaction to the question raised by their discovery. Everyone is full aware that the planar gates are locked (Game mechanic: Characters cannot learn or discover spells that allow them to travel planes. Teleportation is allowed, so is etherness and such since they overlap the material world. Summon Monster also works... no one is sure exactly why. In reality, it works because there is still a 'back door' that is opened and connecting the planes. However this back door does not allow people to simply pass through it like the planar gates did, things must be "forced" through, like with a summon spell)
With the discovery of the two tomes, many leaps and bounds in the arcane arts were made. The discovery of permanency spells, metamagic feats and all explained in the tomes. Within a year, large cities were being lit with permanent flame lampposts, fancy neon signs adorned cafes, stores, and pubs and attracted customers, permanent images modeled clothing in textile stores along with a plethora of other social advancements. All the result of the tomes knowledge.
Not all societies embraced these radical changes, or at the least found drastically different ways to use them. Fractures within cultures and peoples, split over what to do with the knowledge began to rise and the seeds for the Global Nationalist Revolutions were planted.
100-150 years ago: Super Nationalist Ages / Global Age Several generations had passed from the discovery of the two tomes. The cultural factions had taken deep roots and many leaders and governments found it difficult to control their people. The spark that ignited the flame of the Global Nationalist Revolutions originated in the larger human empire of Pandora. The spark wasn't much of a spark and no blood was shed. The empire had officially worshipped a silver dragon named Okander. However the Pandoran people were 'rescued' many years ago before the dragons came by a hound archon named Idune. This group (nick named the Idunites) believed that the Pandoran Empire should honor Idune and not forget his great deeds and create a tri-theistic religion where Idune and Seryaneliric (Okander's predecessor) would be worshipped as equals. The Idunites marched to the capitol city to hold rallies and such. While the rallies in the city were underway, several leaders of the Idunites met with Emperor Rycaro, Okander and their council. No bloodshed accrued and a peaceful resolution was found. At first the Idunites would be allowed to send an official delegate to the emperors council. However this was only a small step and eventually in three years, the Idunites broke from Pandora and created their own nation, centered in the island city of Worldorn, only a half days journey by ferry from the capitol of Pandora. This bold statement spread throughout the land and many organizations who felt the same way were inspired, and thus created large super-nationalistic states.
Well then. There you have it. I give that to all my players to read and ask them to use it when making background story for their characters. There are many open ended issues that I left like that on purpose, so that players can have their characters take a stand on the issue. For example, how the character feels on the issue of re-opening the planar gates, how nationalistic they are, etc. As a DM, the history ends a generation back so anything can really happen in the mean time so it gives me breathing room to create things on the fly, or as needed. Anyway, hope you all like it. And hopefully others will put their homebrews up too... I really enjoy reading other peoples worlds and stuff.
